Lucky West Berkshire for lottery wins

Statistics released this week by the National Lottery show that the RG postcode, which covers West Berkshire, Reading, Basingstoke, Wokingham and Bracknell, has ranked as 17th in the UK for winners of £50,000 and above in the last three years.
Once smaller winnings are taken into account, Berkshire and North Hampshire jumps to 11th place for the total amount of winners in the same period.
Forty-one residents in the RG postcode have also become over-night millionaires since the National Lottery began in 1994 and 315 winnings of £50,000 or more have been dished out.
And handing over a celebratory plaque last Thursday to Newbury mayor Arthur Johnson were millionaires Terry and Annette Rooke from Reading who scooped £2.5m in 2006.
They said their lives had been changed immeasurably as a result of their win and encouraged West Berkshire residents to embrace the district’s lucky streak.
“We used to say to each other, ‘I wonder what it’s like to win the lottery, I bet it’s fabulous’, and now we well be sitting on a beach in some exotic place and we think, wow.”