A self-proclaimed football hooligan who scooped £1 million on the EuroMillions lottery has revealed he nearly missed out on his windfall due to a technicality.
Daniel Wright, whose semi-autobiographical book Northern Monkeys chronicles his involvement with Bradford City's notorious supporter group "The Ointment," shared his story with podcaster James English, explaining he had been abroad when he discovered his fortune whilst his girlfriend was in the shower.
He said: "I just thought I'd check my emails, and I saw on that said 'You've won on EuroMillions.' I thought it would be £2.50 or something."
However, upon opening the official lottery app, Daniel was greeted by a prominent notification confirming his substantial win. He continued: "I wasn't really paying attention. I thought I'd won £1,000, then I thought 'That's not £1,000. I must have counted it 10 times, then I shouted 'Woo!' Like Rick Flair."
Yet there was a potential complication surrounding Daniel's prize "I won the UK match matchmaker," he explained. "But I was in Cape Verde at the time. If I'd bought that ticket in Cape Verde, I wouldn't have got paid."
Daniel's ticket had been purchased through a recurring weekly direct debit. However, he had been overseas when the draw took place.
Upon contacting lottery officials to claim his winnings, they questioned him about his location when purchasing the ticket: "They said to me, 'Where did you put the ticket on?' And I said 'Well, it's a standing order, so it just comes out my bank every month'.
"They said, "Alright, that's alright – but if you'd have bought the ticket while you were abroad, we won't pay you. Imagine that. Imagine if that happened to you.
"So, if you ever win the lottery and you're on holiday, don't ring them until you get back."
Daniel still had another 10 days remaining in Cape Verde, meaning he couldn't claim his winnings until a fortnight later.
That gave him plenty of time to fret about whether it was all an elaborate prank, particularly as it came just after April Fools' Day, and then to worry that someone might sell a story about his criminal history.
He continued: "I think The Lottery knew that I've been in jail, but it's not it's not a rule that you can't be in in jail and play the lottery."
When he finally collected his prize money, he wasn't entirely certain what to do with it.
"It's strange feeling because you don't know what to do really," he said. "You can do what you want so I went traveling for a bit. I got one of those train tickets that goes around Europe, and you can get on and off wherever you want for a month. But after a bit, I got bored of that.
"Even though it's great going looking at all these different cities, but like there's only so many cathedrals and museums you can see before you think 'F***, I want to do something else'.
"So I moved away. I put some money into a couple of businesses here and there and then I just concentrated on writing books. I always wanted to write a novel and I thought 'I've got the perfect chance now,' just so I did that."
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the "Do Not Sell or Share my Data" button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Terms and Conditions.