Portsmouth colleagues celebrate after scooping £122,000 in EuroMillions draw

Each member of the Victorious Secret syndicate, which has been running since 2009, will take home a £8,193.21 share.

The group work at H&S Aviation in Portsmouth and play 15 lines in the EuroMillions draw every Friday – they use the same numbers the original 15 group members picked in 2009.

Syndicate leader Jim Filson set up the group in 2009 after he saw a big EuroMillions rollover. He thought the big win was ‘a wind-up’ at first.

He said: ‘Up until now I’ll admit we haven’t been the luckiest syndicate, with only very small wins here and there, but I’ve always hoped and believed we would come good.

‘I guess fate was testing our commitment – I’m very glad we’ve stuck with it!

‘I always check our syndicate numbers on Saturday morning and while I had received an e-mail saying we’d won, I assumed it was another couple of quid.

‘I logged onto national-lottery.co.uk and the account balance hadn’t changed so I assumed it was one big wind up!

‘However, when I clicked on the email message thoughts of cruel pranks were put to one side when I saw £1,228.

‘I was really chuffed, until I rubbed my eyes and looked again and instead saw £122,898.20!’

Jim, who buys tickets for the syndicate online at national-lottery.co.uk, first called his boss – and fellow syndicate member – to let him know of the good news.

The Victorious Secret syndicate chose to celebrate their win at HMS Victory at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The ship is one of the many projects at the site to have received lottery funding.

Despite being optimistic of a win, Jim, who has been a credit controller at H&S Aviation for 10 years, doesn’t have a plans for his share of the win.

He added: ‘I don’t have any specific plans but I’m not going to fritter it away.

‘It will go on something tangible so I can say “our lottery win paid for that”.’

Other syndicate members have plans for holidays to destinations including Florida, New Zealand and Japan, while others want to pay for a new car, a honeymoon, a boiler and a wedding.

Players raise, on average, more than £30m for National Lottery-funded projects, such as Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

For more information on National Lottery funding visit lotterygoodcauses.org.uk.