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I won £1m on the lottery but I still bargain hunt

Ceri Roberts won £1m on the EuroMillions Millionaire Maker draw last year

A mum-of-five who won £1m on the lottery still bargain shops, she said.

Ceri Roberts and her husband Paul bought their "dream home" in Llanberis, Gwynedd, which she now runs as a guest house, after winning the EuroMillions Millionaire Maker draw.

The former nurse said winning the money in November 2023 was "life-changing" for her family, who no longer worried about reaching "the end of the month when all the direct debits and bills go out".

But, she added: "I still don't go shopping to one place if I know it's cheaper somewhere else. I don't think that will ever change."

Ms Roberts is one of 408 people in Wales who have won £1m or more on the National Lottery since its launch in November 1994.

She and her husband Paul rang the claims line while they watched one of their children play football.

"Nobody had scored a goal but our car was shaking," she said.

"The kids were in the back wailing and me and my husband were crying in the front."

Having the money in the bank was a "surreal" experience and she said she could not bring herself to spend any of it for six weeks.

Then she bought herself a car.

"I didn't own a car at that time, I was borrowing one," she said.

Ms Roberts quit her job as the manager of a domiciliary care company and said she now has time to spend with her family.

She said the family wanted to "make memories together" and visited Marrakesh in Morocco in February where they went quad biking in the desert.

However, she said her children have not had more than they normally would for Christmas and birthdays.

"To be able to give them memories is far more important than buying them big, extravagant gifts," she added.

In the 30 years since the lottery began, "good causes" in Wales have received £2.3bn from ticket sales.

One of them is SHIFT Together, a not-for-profit company that offers free mental health support to people in the Rhondda valley.

It was set up three years ago by therapist Caroline Shanks from Treorchy.

When she moved to the area she set up a mental health support group after she "realised there was a real unmet need" in the area.

The money from the lottery's Community Fund has enabled it to expand the number of support groups in a variety of locations.

A woman with brown hair and glasses, wearing a black turtle neck jumper and sitting in a community cafe
Therapist Caroline Shanks says there is massive "unmet need" for mental health support in the valleys

SHIFT Together now provides 10 support groups and an online service, as well as art therapy and a cost of living cooking club.

Ms Shanks said: "It's been amazing to have the funding, without it we wouldn't have been able to do what we're doing."

The lottery's previous operator Camelot faced criticism for making big increases in corporate profits without significantly increasing good causes funding.

In February, a new operating company Allwyn took over, promising to double the amount of money allocated to good causes within a decade.

While the lottery is a form of gambling, a report from a committee of MPs suggested that it "poses significantly fewer gambling harms than many other forms of gambling".

The UK government said research by Health Survey England found the problem gambling rate for draw-based games was lower than 1% and for scratch cards was 1.4%, compared to a range of 2.7% - 12.7% for other activities.

But it added that the growth of online play "presents risks" and "we must remain vigilant about this".

Allwyn said it uses a "meticulous" process to design games which "ensures they are lower risk" and puts "player safety first" with multiple online protections including "a tool that monitors patterns of play, identifies those at risk, and intervenes in play where necessary".