A WINNING Grimsby business team have scooped a cool £1 million on the first ever EuroMillions Mega Friday draw.
A lucky 27 employees at the company will bag around £40,000 each after their ticket was picked out at random as part of the first Mega Friday draw, where 25 lucky ticket-holders received £1 million each.
The lucky 27 – who have opted to remain anonymous – were notified of their win on Monday morning, having found out late on Sunday.
One of the benefactors told the Grimsby Telegraph: "It is fantastic news. As you would expect, we are all delighted.
"I can't speak for the 26 others but it was a fantastic surprise and we are very pleased.
"I can't say I have any early plans for what I will do with the money, so I'll probably just put it in the bank to save until it sinks in really. I wouldn't say it was a life-changing sum of money, but it's certainly a nice help isn't it?"
As part of their prize, the syndicate was also awarded a luxury trip for eight people to Richard Branson's private island.
But the winners decided to exchange this for more money as it would have been unfair for only eight people to enjoy the holiday, meaning their total earnings will eventually top £1.1 million.
The firm's syndicate has been running for the past six years but had recorded no winnings, apart from the usual small cash prizes from time to time.
The winner added: "We didn't find out until Sunday after our syndicate manager checked the website. Our numbers didn't come up so she didn't think too much of it, but then she noticed we had been chosen as one of the random prize draw winners.
"We thought it would be a bit unfair to have a luxury holiday for just eight of us, so we agreed to have more cash instead – which is a nice choice to have!
"It was actually getting quite difficult to organise every week so we had agreed to wind it down from the start of next year.
"Obviously we're very pleased we didn't decide to do that earlier now!"
It follows an incredible run of Grimsby winners on the lottery, which began back in 1998 when Roy Gibney scooped a staggering £7,517,931.
Then former trawlerman Bernie Finn netted a cool £3,153,555 on November of that year – just three-and-a-half week's before Jackie King scooped a massive £14 million.
Jackie was the sole beneficiary of a huge rollover jackpot – the third big Grimsby winner in a matter of months.
Colin and Maureen Darwood then won £1.6 million in 2007.
And more recently, Lee and Susan Mullen won £4.8 million on the EuroMillions in 2012.
Camelot are due to meet the syndicate members and officially confirm the win today.
From now on, Mega Friday will take place on the last Friday of every month.
ON THE WEB: What would you do if you won £40,000? Visit our website www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk and let us know.
