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EuroMillions jackpot winners bought ticket after 'lucky feeling' EuroMillions winners bought £61m ticket after lifesaving cancer operation
(about 1 hour later)
A family who scooped a £61.1m EuroMillions jackpot only bought the ticket after their mother rang from her holiday in Florida to say she was feeling lucky. A family syndicate from Wales have won a £61m lottery jackpot after buying a ticket because they felt like “the luckiest people on the planet” after one of them had lifesaving cancer surgery.
The five-strong syndicate made up of Stephanie Davies, 23, her boyfriend Steve Powell, 30, her sister Courtney, 19, their mum Sonia, 53, and Sonia’s partner Keith Reynolds, 55, from Monmouth, hit the jackpot on Friday, 29 July. Sonia Davies, 53, called her daughter Stephanie, 23, to urge her to buy the ticket last Friday, two days after undergoing surgery in Florida to remove a tumour on her parathyroid gland.
Stephanie purchased the six Lucky Dip tickets only after receiving a call from her mother late on Friday evening. Sonia Davies pleaded with her daughter to buy the tickets as she was feeling lucky. Having been told by doctors that the surgery had saved her life, she felt she was “on a winning streak”, she told a press conference in Newport on Wednesday. “I felt like I had cheated death. You just think, OK, we’ll buy a lottery ticket, because I feel so lucky.”
“I thought mum was mad calling me from holiday but they were so insistent I knew we had to do it,” she said on Wednesday as the family celebrated the £61,102,442.90 win. The two women will share the rollover jackpot of £61,102,442.90 with Sonia’s other daughter Courtney, 19, Sonia’s partner Keith Reynolds, 55, and Stephanie’s partner Steve Powell, 30.
Sonia Davies was celebrating after successful keyhole surgery in the US to remove a tumour on her parathyroid gland. Sonia Davies, who flew home to Monmouth after learning of their huge win, said it had been a “rollercoaster of a week”. “I had my operation on Wednesday and until then we didn’t know how serious it was. They told me that if it hadn’t been removed it would have been fatal – and at the very least I would have lost my voice within a year.
Stephanie Davies bought the tickets from the Overmonow Garage in Monmouth and was stunned when she checked the numbers in the early hours of Sunday morning. “They managed to give me the all clear straight after the operation, so as you can imagine we were on cloud nine.” She said her partner had been scanning his emails and learned about the EuroMillions rollover.
Describing her dash to get the tickets, she said: “My car was blocked in the drive by my boyfriend Steve’s, so to save time I made him drive me to buy a ticket instead of moving mine.” “He was convinced that we were the luckiest people on the planet and definitely on a winning streak after the success of my op ... something told us we needed to get a ticket – and the rest is history.”
Her mother, an admin assistant, and Reynolds, a regional director, were in Florida to see his daughter graduate and for the surgery. Stephanie Davies, a sales executive, said she had thought her mother was “mad” to call from Florida, where the couple were also having a holiday. “But they were so insistent I knew we had to do it.” She bought six Lucky Dip tickets at a garage in Monmouth, close to the Welsh-English border, but forgot to check the numbers until early on Sunday morning, when she looked on her iPad and realised one of their tickets had all the numbers.
Earlier this year, Sonia Davies was diagnosed with the tumour and found a world-leading treatment centre near where they were on holiday so she could have keyhole surgery there. “I came back downstairs to find Steve and couldn’t take my hand away from my mouth in shock. I kept saying, ‘We’ve won, and I’m not joking.’”
“I had my operation on Wednesday and until then, we didn’t know how serious it was,” she said. “They told me that if it hadn’t been removed it would have been fatal – at the very least I would have lost my voice within a year. They checked and checked again, then locked all the doors and windows in case someone could hear they had won. The pair managed to catch her mother and Reynolds before they boarded their plane home – described by Sonia Davies as “the longest flight of our life” – before calling Courtney and, at 5.20am, ringing lottery organisers Camelot to claim their prize.
“They managed to give me the all-clear straight after the operation, so as you would imagine, we were on cloud nine.” Sonia Davies and Reynolds said they were hoping to share their winnings of £12,2200,488.58 each with family and friends, but would also like a new oak carport for their home. Younger daughter Courtney, a student at the university of Southampton, plans to finish her degree in psychology before deciding what to do next, but said she wanted to replace her VW Fox and to buy an electric toothbrush. For Stephanie and her partner, the priorities are decorating the home they bought together at Christmas, and a trip to the Caribbean.
Fighting back tears while talking to reporters, Stephanie Davies said: “It’s just so much to take in. It doesn’t seem real. There are so many emotions coming through.”