The man with the Midas Lotto touch

Brian Warke cannot put his finger on what it is that has marked out his shopping centre kiosk and his shop at Caw as lucky Lotto outlets, but he regularly hands out over £1,000 a week in winning tickets and scratch cards, and in the last six months has seen two customers walk away with huge wins - one bagging over £1million in a Lotto ticket, the other getting an £85,000 scratch card.

“The winning Lotto ticket was bought around six months ago. I know that the ticket has already been claimed, but because the winner wants no publicity they have only now released the information and that is why it is only now coming to light. It’s the same situation with the scratch card,

“Someone is walking around with a big smile on their face, but I don’t know who it is,” said Brian.

Admitting that he felt “great” that two people had bought tickets that were lucky for them, he said: “I feel very proud that I have sold the tickets. A lot of people have said ‘It will never be me’ but for two people it has come true and it was them and I just feel very proud I sold them the tickets.”

Prior to these two big wins the most Brian and his staff have handed out was the occasional £1,000 win on a scratch card - in fact one has been sold from the kiosk and three have been sold from the shop, but each week the kiosk hands out between £3,000 and £4,000 in small winnings and £1,000 is handed out from the shop in Caw.

“I think that the more people play the more chance they have of winning. Everybody cannot win all the time, but you just need to win big once,” he said adding: “I like to think of it as a savings club; you put in money for so long and then you get something back out.”

“I have no idea who won the Lotto ticket, but I know we get a lot of through traffic at the shopping centre and there are a lot of tourists and people from out of town buying tickets, so it might not even be someone local. Whoever they are hopefully they are enjoying it, and that it brings them a lot of luck,” he said.