Off the charts: the UK’s luckiest places
Birmingham has played a (Peaky) blinder by topping the list of National Lottery millionaire hot spots.
Analysis of the more than 6,800 National Lottery millionaires created since the first draw in 1994, reveals 205 of them hail from England’s second largest city. Belfast is the second luckiest city with a total of 174 millionaires; Glasgow is third with 158 millionaires and Sheffield is fourth with 150.
Newcastle and Liverpool were the fifth luckiest cities with a total of 136 millionaires each. Manchester placed sixth with 133 millionaires, followed by Cardiff with 126 and Peterborough with 119. Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham were equal ninth with 102 millionaires each and Doncaster placed 10th with 96.
A total of £90Billion in prize money has been paid out since Noel Edmonds hosted the first draw on 19th November 1994.
Celeste Coles, a retired teacher who landed a £3.6Million prize in July 2022, is one of Birmingham’s big winners. Speaking outside the National Lottery-funded Library of Birmingham, she wished her fellow Brummies even more good luck in the years to come.
Celeste said, “It’s been an amazing year – winning the lottery is truly life-changing. I have been able to treat my family and buy a holiday home in Spain which will mean we can all create more memorable moments together.
“Congratulations to all the Brummie winners so far, hoping for lots more in the future! I’ve always known we are a lucky city, and everyone should remember that it could be you, as long as you have a ticket in your pocket!”
Indeed, the big wins keep coming. In the period 1st April 2022 to 31st March 2023 no less than 383 new National Lottery millionaires were made – that’s more than one a day on average.
Since the first draw, the UK’s luckiest hot spots in terms of millionaires per head of adult population are Watford, Motherwell and Romford. In all three places a millionaire was made for less than every 5000 adults. Also featured in the per capita top ten are St Albans, Hull, Harrow and Durham.
A lucky win doesn’t have to mean 7 figures. More than 43,000 prizes of £50,000 or more have been won by National Lottery players since the first draw in 1994.
Dividing these wins by the adult population in towns and cities across the UK shows that luck lives in every corner of the UK. Romford in Essex tops the list with 1 in every 755 adults pocketing a big prize. Galashiels in the Scottish Borders is second with 1 in every 864 adults, followed by Cleveland in Yorkshire with 1 in every 875 residents winning a life-changing sum.
Also featured in this top ten are Medway, Newport, Bromley and Sunderland. Check out our Millionaire Map to see the luckiest places in the UK.
6th June 2023
The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK since 1994. In that time, there have been more than 7,400 new millionaires created and by playing The National Lottery you raise over £4 million for Good Causes every dayΔ.
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