A lotto luck across the region

The incredible winning streak in the area was revealed as the lottery prepares to celebrate the 13th anniversary of the first ever draw held in November 1994. The big winners in the Black Country include a couple who bagged the draw's highest ever payout – Tom and Rita Naylor from Wednesfield in Wolverhampton who scooped £15, 528,285 six years ago.

Former lorry driver Tom, aged 52, and Rita, 50, who worked in Walsall's leather industry, traded in their three-bedroom semi for a luxury converted barn near Wheaton Aston and now enjoy exotic holidays to locations like Mexico, St Lucia and Los Angeles.

Tom now has a fleet of Jags and Rita a mountain of shoes, but she says: "We really haven't allowed the win to change us. We are normal people and we do the same things we always used to. There's just a lot more choice in our lives now."

The last 13 years of the draw have seen more than 2,000 millionaires created, with a combined wealth of £5.9 billion, while more than 10,000 people have won a share of the jackpot.

Since it started, the lottery has paid out more than £29 billion in prizes with an av-erage of around four million winners every week across all its draw-based games and scratchcards, winning anything from £1 to a jackpot worth several million.

The biggest win in the UK – and European – lottery history was a record-breaking £125 million EuroMillions jackpot in February 2006 which was shared between three winners, two in France and one in Portugal.

The Big Draw 2000, a one-off draw to celebrate Millennium Eve, produced an impressive 18 winning tickets worth £1 million, the most millionaires ever created in one night.

To date, more than £19 billion has been raised for the good causes through the lottery at the rate of £25 million a week.

However the bad news is that the odds of winning the Lotto jackpot are one in 13,983,816.

And the winners are . . .

* Lorry driver Tom Naylor, from Wednesfield, drove off with a truck load of cash when he and wife Rita won £15,528,286 in November 2001.

* Buying a ticket on Friday the 13th proved lucky for retired Bilston couple Irene and Ronald Jones, who hit the £9,355,596 Lotto Triple Rollover jackpot in October 2006.

* Builders and lifelong friends John Radford and Alf Cole, from Wordsley, won £5,438,971 in 2003.

* A syndicate from Willenhall-based Arcelor Steel scooped a cool £5,061,750 in November 2006 on EuroMillions.

* Smethwick woman Penelope Collins-Hunt bagged £2,608,128 when she hit the jackpot in 2004.

* Baggies fans Mick and Josie Timmins, from Dudley, netted £2,010,257 after a jackpot win in September 2006.

* Nicholl Grange Care Home syndicate from West Bromwich celebrated a £1,900,095 win in 2003.

* Kingswinford grandmother Brenda Portch clinched £1,487,099 in October 2006 after reading it in her horoscope.