A EuroMillions winner who scooped a £108 million jackpot has revealed he initially found life as a rich man ‘boring’.
Neil Trotter, a former mechanic, won the transnational draw in March 2014 after buying £10 worth of Lucky Dip tickets, one of which matched the seven numbers needed to scoop the sizeable jackpot.
With his winnings, Mr Trotter swapped his Ford Focus for a fleet of luxury supercars, including as Jaguars and Porsches. He also bought a Grade-II listed mansion situated within a sprawling 400-acre estate and a lake.
Eight years on from his life-changing win, Mr Trotter has admitted that leaving work behind was “a strange thing to adjust to”, and was at first left watching television at home all day.
Speaking of the difficulties he faced adjusting to his newfound wealth, he said: “I’ve always worked all my life so going from having to work to not having to work anymore was quite a strange thing to adjust to.”
“I soon found out that sitting at home watching telly all day was quite boring,” he told BBC Breakfast. “So I bought a house that needed a lot of work.
“It’s taken me five years to get my life where I want it. It’s been a bit of a struggle adjusting to having so much money but this is the dream - to buy a big house with some land and a lake.”
Asked why he went public with his win, he said: “It was quite tricky but I don’t really see there’s any option.
“If you want to live the dream, which is to have the house, the money and spend it you’ve got to go public.
“People have said in the past they’d hide the money. I think £170m would be impossible to hide.”
Mr Trotter said that Camelot, who run the lottery, had told him not to spend his winnings right away, which he described as “one of the best pieces of advice.”
His major win, which he says allowed him to live his dream life, meant his wealth far surpassed that of his businessman father Jim Trotter, who already owned his own convoy of luxury cars.
Having been compared after the win to the Only Fools and Horses character Del Boy Trotter, he said: “Me and my dad thought we’d heard all the Only Fools and Horses jokes but I can see this is going to run and run. Still, being Trotters we were always going to be millionaires one day.”
It comes as the winning numbers for Friday’s Euromillions jackpot of £113 million have been released.
The winning numbers are 07, 24, 34, 39, 46. The winning EuroMillions Lucky Star numbers are: 01, 06.
