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We’re the £7bn lottery duo – we’ve seen it all from £196m lotto winner to man who won TWICE & most popular 1st buys
Kathy and Andy are part of a team of seven who visit every lottery player who wins more than £50,000
KATHY GARRETT and Andy Carter are a £7billion duo.
That’s the astonishing total which the National Lottery’s longest-serving winners’ advisers have handed out to those lucky punters who have hit the jackpot.
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The pair have met more big winners than anyone else in the UK.
And to mark the lottery’s 30th anniversary they have revealed some of the secrets of the more than 5,000 happy winners who they have come to know as friends.
Kathy knows the identity of the mystery recipient of the biggest-ever prize — a mind-boggling £195,707,000 on the EuroMillions draw in 2022.
Remarkably, the winner has managed to remain anonymous and Kathy will not give any clue to their identity.
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But she does say: “They’ve done very well and are doing very well.
Eiffel Tower
“They understand that it’s a lot of money for them and they want to give something back, but to do it in an anonymous way.
“It’s life-changing for anybody to win on the lottery but when you win that sort of money you need an awful lot of support and help, which they have had.
“We guide them and introduce them to people that can help to make their journey a little bit easier.”
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Andy Carter
Andy, 50, has been a winners’ adviser for 18 years and has become a bit of a household name.
When winners call the National Lottery to claim their jackpot they will often ask: “Will Andy Carter be coming to see me?”
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Over the years Andy has found that winners tend to follow a similar pattern. He says: “Most will buy a new car straight away.
“Quite a few people will put a deposit on a car before we even get there and want to know, ‘When’s my money hitting the account?’
“Paying off the mortgage is the next thing. But the lottery has paid for a lot of new hips, new knees, new teeth, new hair.”
“And laser eye surgery,” adds Kathy, 60, a mum of four from Kent.
One of Andy’s most memorable winners, Les Scadding, now 68, won a £45.5million EuroMillions jackpot in 2009, then invested some of it in Newport County FC in South Wales — and became club chairman.
Remarkably, only one of the 5,000 winners they have dealt with wanted to tell no one — not even family.
Kathy says: “The reason he kept it a secret is that he wanted to surprise his partner and propose to her.
“He arranged to take her to Paris for the weekend and took her to a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, where he proposed to her.
“Thankfully she said yes, and then he revealed that he’d also won the lottery. But he wanted her to accept his proposal before telling her he had won a million pounds.”
Private jet
The winner booked his romantic holiday in France using an idea that Kathy came up with — a concierge service that make dreams come true for lottery winners.
She says: “It’s proved very popular because some of these winners have never been on a holiday before, or they get a chef in to cook Christmas dinner for all the family, maybe hire a private jet to fly off somewhere.
“Once somebody literally went 200 miles up the road in their private jet and never left the UK.
“We had a lovely couple who won a lot of money last year and they took the whole family away on a private jet — and the dog went with them.”
Andy adds: “Someone said to me the other day, ‘What’s the point of me having this money if I can’t do stuff with the people I love?’”
The duo’s phones often ping with photos of their big-winning clients on an exotic holiday.
Kathy says: “It’s lovely because you can see the difference their win is making to their lives and that they’re fully embracing it and enjoying it.”
Andy adds: “They could have thought of anyone but they think of you. There was a guy I dealt with who said, ‘I’m going to travel around the world and watch cricket.’
“Now I haven’t spoken to him for years, but every so often he emails a picture. He’ll be in Barbados, Sri Lanka or Sydney, in the great sporting arenas of the world.”
Kathy and Andy are part of a team of seven who visit every lottery player who wins more than £50,000.
They take with them a book in which punters can record their memories of the win — and a bottle of champagne that comes out when all the formalities are completed.
Often during that first meeting winners’ phones will be constantly pinging as news leaks out that they have won the jackpot.
Andy says: “Sometimes you turn up at people’s houses and the whole village or even the whole town knows. You’ve got people knocking on the door when you’re there and messages are coming through saying, ‘Congratulations on your lottery win.’
The oldest winner I’ve paid was 105. It wasn’t going to make a massive difference to her life at that age but it gave her real pleasure to see that her family would benefit from it
Kathy Garrett
“The winner, who hasn’t gone public at this stage, will often look at their phone and say, ‘Oh, I haven’t seen him for years.’
“Nice news spreads fast and people are genuinely pleased. They like to know someone who’s won the lottery.”
Kathy, who was once hugged so hard by a delighted winner that she feared he would crack her ribs, says: “The oldest winner I’ve paid was 105.
“She lived in a little house and she had all her family around her.
“It wasn’t going to make a massive difference to her life at that age but it gave her real pleasure to see that her family would benefit from it.”
Another of Kathy’s winners, Doris Stanbridge, from Dorking in Surrey, was 70 when she won the lottery’s Set For Life game, which pays out £10,000 a month for 30 years.
Kathy says: “She will be 100 when she gets her last payment. She’s going to have a huge party if she makes it.
“Doris is great and really making the most of it, helping families and enjoying the holidays.”
After 30 years, your chance of winning the lottery is just as remote as it has ever been, but Kathy and Andy say their big winners keep on playing — and some have hit the jackpot again.
Kathy says: “In 15 years I’ve paid five winners over £50,000 twice, which is absolutely incredible.”
Andy adds: “Last year I visited someone who had won and he said, ‘I think you may have seen my brother’.
“Two brothers had won the lottery, a year apart. One had won £2million and the other just under a million.”
And Kathy recalls: “I had two sisters — one won the lottery jackpot and the other won £1million, four years apart.”
Very emotional
Many punters give up work the moment they win, but some can’t let go of their jobs so fast — including a butcher who scooped the jackpot.
Kathy says: “It was coming up to Christmas and people were coming to collect their turkeys and he didn’t want to let them down by saying, ‘I’ve got an appointment.’
“He wanted to see me because he was going to get his lottery money but he couldn’t just shut up shop and focus on his win. So every two minutes he’d jump up to go and hand somebody their turkey.
“His customers had no idea he was disappearing into the back of the shop to see me.
“He stayed anonymous. He did carry on with the shop for a little while — and then changed direction.”
Andy says: “Builders are the ones that can’t walk away.
“They are so loyal, they don’t want to let anybody down, and even though they could pay for somebody else to do the work, they go and do it themselves.”
Kathy dealt with builder Steve Thomson, 47, from Selsey, West Sussex, who won £105million on EuroMillions in 2019. Amazingly, he kept on working until all his customers’ jobs had been completed.
Syndicates are fun. I once went to a funeral parlour with some undertakers who had won. I even went to the Greggs factory to meet workers who had won £100,000 on EuroMillions. It was like Willy Wonka in there
Andy Carter
She says: “He was very, very emotional. At the beginning he was in tears because he just wanted to carry on as normal. It was a huge amount and it just took him a little while to get his head around everything.
“He’s fine. The whole family are really happy and they’ve built their own home.
“He wanted to help his friends still do the building work. Most winners are loyal — they’ve committed to something and they don’t want to let anybody down.
“So even though they have got over £100million now in their bank account they’ve still promised to fit the little old lady’s door for her up the road, and they want to carry on doing that.”
Andy says: “I have never met a winner who has told the boss to stuff his job.”
Over the years the pair have also paid out prizes to lots of family and workplace syndicates.
Andy says: “Syndicates are fun. I once went to a funeral parlour with some undertakers who had won. I even went to the Greggs factory to meet workers who had won £100,000 on EuroMillions. It was like Willy Wonka in there.”
In 2012, a dozen bus drivers in Corby, Northants, won £38million on EuroMillions and did quit their jobs — eventually.
Andy says: “There’s been Tesco’s workers, teachers, nurses, dance teams and pub syndicates.”
Most big winners never forget the numbers that won them the jackpot.
Some have the figures hidden within tattoos, others have even had them included in wrought-iron gates.
Mark and Ruth Chalmers, who scooped £1million on EuroMillions in 2018, had their winning Millionaire Maker code — MHSL49011 — carved into the stone wall outside their new home in Halifax, West Yorkshire.
Kathy says of the adviser team’s job: “We’re there for as long as we are needed.
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“The bigger multi-million-pound winners stay in touch a bit more.
“Some haven’t told a lot of people about their win, so they like to tell us about the big events in their life. It’s the best job in the world.”
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