'Smugly anonymously': As jackpot hits £208m these are the people who have won the UK’s 10 biggest EuroMillions prizes

Everybody is talking about this weekend’s lottery draw and we have all spent a moment or two thinking about how we would spend the money if we won big. Even those who have never played Lotto are usually still happy to join in the ‘what would you buy first’ conversation.

And there is a chance that a single EuroMillions ticket-holder could become the UK’s biggest lottery winner tomorrow. Friday’s jackpot of an estimated £208 million would be the largest prize the UK has seen, National Lottery operator Allwyn said.

Here are the 10 biggest UK lottery wins to date – all from EuroMillions draws – and what some of the winners did with their fortunes. We’ve even included those wins where we don’t even know their name ...

– Anonymous, £195,707,000

A UK ticket-holder scooped a EuroMillions jackpot of £195 million on July 19 2022.

– Joe and Jess Thwaite, £184,262,899.10

Joe and Jess Thwaite, from Gloucester, scooped a then record-breaking £184,262,899 with a Lucky Dip ticket for the draw on May 10 2022.

At the time, Joe was a communications sales engineer, and Jess ran a hairdressing salon with her sister.

– Anonymous, £177,033,699.20

A UK ticket-holder became the third biggest National Lottery winner after receiving a £177 million jackpot.

The winner, who chose to remain anonymous, came forward to claim the EuroMillions jackpot after the draw on November 26 2024.

They became immediately wealthier than popstar Dua Lipa, who is worth an estimated £104 million, and Michael Buble, worth around £63 million.

– Anonymous, £171,815,297.80

A UK ticket-holder scooped £171,815,297.80 in the September 23 2022 draw – at the time the country’s third biggest National Lottery win.

– Anonymous, £170,221,000

The fifth biggest winner of the National Lottery to date scooped £170 million in 2019 after matching all the numbers in a Must Be Won draw on October 8.

– Colin and Chris Weir, £161,653,000

Colin and Chris Weir, from Largs, North Ayrshire, bagged their historic winnings on July 12 2011, making them the biggest UK winners at the time.

Colin invested £2.5 million in his beloved Partick Thistle FC, which led to one of the stands at the stadium being named after him.

He later acquired a 55% shareholding in the club, which was passed into the hands of the local community upon his death in December 2019, aged 71.

The couple also set up the Weir Charitable Trust in 2013 and donated £1 million to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. They divorced in the year of Colin’s death.

– Adrian and Gillian Bayford, £148,656,000

Adrian and Gillian, from Haverhill, Suffolk, won 190 million euros in a EuroMillions draw on August 10 2012, which came to just over £148 million.

The couple bought a Grade II-listed estate in Cambridgeshire, complete with cinema and billiards room, but it was sold in 2021, some years after the pair divorced.

– Anonymous, £123,458,008

The eighth biggest National Lottery winner won a Superdraw rollover jackpot on June 11 2019, and decided not to go public with their success.

– Anonymous, £122,550,350

After nine rollovers, one lucky ticket-holder bagged more than £122 million in April 2021.

Another of the UK’s top 10 lottery winners found their fortune through a Superdraw jackpot rollover, this time in April 2018.