Millionaire Bingo Winners - The Luckiest Bingo Players

Bingo is a funny game. There are thousands of people who still go to their local bingo hall every week claiming it is for the social side of the game. If they are lucky, they will win a few quid, or a prize they don’t really want and be happy with it, having had a good afternoon or evening out.

Next, there are the online players who tend to take things a little more seriously, but at the end of the day, they are playing more for the entertainment value than the chance of winning big.

Every once in a while, you will see reports from the bingo companies posted on their websites listing the big winners, but actual bingo millionaires are few and far between. That said, we made it our business to track some of the most recent ones down, just to prove that it can and does happen.

£3.4 million - Anne Marie Farrar (2015)

In 2015 Anne-Marie Farrar, a single mum from Halifax staked a meagre 15p on the Iceland Bingo site and won a colossal £3.4 million jackpot. Apparently, she had only recently started playing on the Iceland site when she hit the jackpot, having tried numerous others first.

Anne-Marie said later that although she had tried out many different bingo sites, she always kept to a minimum deposit and low stakes because she was never sure that she could trust them with her money.

Anne-Marie was presented with a cheque for her winnings outside her local Iceland store, but we doubt she shops there any more and was last seen jetting off to Disneyland with her kids.

£1.2 million - Mandy Bowman (2016)

Farmer’s wife Mandy Bowman, from Moray in Scotland, worked hard on the farm, but her real passion in life was horses. In the little spare time available, she also enjoyed playing on the Glossy Bingo site.

Money was tight, so she always kept her stakes low. However, one notable evening in 2016 Mandy won £400 and so she decided, just for once to keep playing, using her winnings as stake money. She was down to her last £3 when she hit the £1.2 million jackpot.

Mandy still lives happily on the farm with her husband. She invested some of her winnings into upgrading the farm buildings and machinery but has also started her own business, a horse-related one.

£1.2 million - Soraya Lowell (2008)

In 2008, when Soraya Lowell arrived at the Club 3000 bingo hall in Coatbridge, Scotland, along with her neighbour and bingo buddy, little did she know she would be leaving as a millionaire. Both ladies were weekly regulars there and always split any winnings equally.

Soraya thought she had only won around £500 and was shell-shocked to find that it was in fact almost £1.2 million. Regardless of the amount, she still split the money with her neighbour and refused to move from her modest home, decisions that led to her divorce four months later.

The really ironic thing is that less than four years later, Soraya was declared bankrupt and ended up losing the house and the neighbour she had refused to move away from.

£1.1 million - Anita Campbell (2019)

They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but apparently winning streaks do sometimes. Anita Campbell from County Durham was living on benefits when she pulled off two wins, just 10 days apart, making her a millionaire.

Anita was always a big Mecca bingo fan, frequenting her local bingo hall until 2018 when she started playing online, having deposited £100. Her big wins both came just in time for Christmas 2019. The first was £600,000, the second £520,000 totalling £1.12 million.

It is early days since Anita’s windfalls, but she has already moved into her own home and we think she may have had the best Christmas ever.

The End

So there we have it, four stories of different winners, not all entirely happy ones either. As with many big gambling winners, they tend to become anonymous shortly afterwards, unless of course, they do something newsworthy with their money.

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