Inside lavish lives of Scotland's lottery winners from luxury holidays to fancy homes
The purchases of the rich and not-so famous.
Scots lucky enough to have scooped a fortune on the lottery have used their winnings to live the high life. Here we take a look at what they have splurged their winnings on.
John McGuinness
The hospital porter was living with his mum and dad in their council house and earning just £150 a week when he won a whopping £10million in 1997.
He treated himself to luxury holidays and fast cars, and ploughed money into the thing closest to his hear - Livingston Football Club. But he also shared his wealth with loved ones.
He gifted £3million to his family, and gave his ex-wife £750,000, but his biggest investment was in Livingston. He poured £4million into the club, but it later entered administration.
He was left liable for all the club's debt, after using his wealth as a guarantee against the club's loans, and is now understood to be struggling to pay for food and living as a virtual recluse.
John Roberts
The security guard scooped £3.1million and embarked on a classic spending spree, splashing out on luxury holidays, houses and cars with his 1998 winnings.
But within three years, he was left penniless, after a string of unsuccessful investments, and is said to have been forced to rely on friends and family for handouts.
Michael Carroll
In 2002, Rangers supporter Michael Carroll pocketed £9.7million - and ended up blowing his full fortune. Known as the Lotto Lout, Carroll partied hard and spent even harder.
A lover of flash cars, he shelled out on new homes, jewellery and drugs, and paid for a banger racing track to be built in the three acres of land surrounding his six-bedroom home.
The 35-year-old's spending was so grandose he was dubbed the King of Chavs. But he lost his £10million fortune in 10 years, and returned to the type of low-skilled jobs he had been doing before he struck it rich.
He chopped wood and lifted heavy bags of fuel every day while working for a coal merchant firm, starting work at 6am for £10-and-hour. And in 2010 he reapplied for his old binman job.
He also later earned £11 an hour in a biscuit factory and then got a job working at a fuel yard in Moray, in the north east of Scotland, regularly working 12-hour shifts.
He credited the new job with helping his weight drop from 22st to 17st. The position involved lifting eight-stone bags of coal, leaving him covered in soot, and chopping logs to burn in furnaces.
Callie Rogers
The shop worker became the youngest ever lottery winner in 2003 when she walked away with £1.8million - a fortune which she later blew.
As well as blowing £250,000 on cocaine, she spent £300,000 on clothes and £18,000 on boob jobs - and also ended up having a serious mental health battle.
Callie, who also gifted £500,000 to friends and family, overcame her struggles after a suicide attempt and said she was much happier as a mother-of-three in her 30s.
Speaking on ITV's 'This Morning', she said: "Not knowing who liked me for me, and having all the stress of all the money, I just wanted to go back to having a normal life. I still struggle with trust issues."
Jason and Victoria Jones
In 2004, the couple won £2.3million - just four weeks into their marriage. As well as buying a luxury home for themselves, they spent £70,000 on a sports car and built up a property portfolio.
But the couple split after Victoria got close to businessman Mike Clare, who sold bed retailer Dreams for £222million in 2008. In 2016, she said: "The stress it gives you in life and even 12 years down the line, I’m still classed as a lottery winner and it’s horrible."
Colin and Christine Weir
In 2011, Colin and Christine Weir banked £161million. Perhaps the biggest lottery spenders in history, Colin burned through his fortune, spending £100,000 every week in the months before his death.
They snapped up a £3.5million mansion near Troon, South Ayrshire, after just 10 minutes, but pair parted ways. not long after their big win, and he died from from sepsis and an acute kidney injury, aged 71, in December 2019.
The couple divorced just before he died but the former TV cameraman signed over sole ownership of the plush Frognal House to Christine before his death.
He splashed out on luxury cars and pumped money into his favourite football clubs, Partick Thistle, and also set up bursaries for a number of youngsters in his hometown of Largs, North Ayrshire.
By the time he died, Colin had spent £40million in just eight years. He had suffered years of ill health and at the time of his death, he lived in a £1.1million five-bedroom seafront home in Ayr, which he bought in June 2018 after his marriage split.
Gillian Bayford
In 2012, Gillian won £148 million with her first husband Adrian Bayford. But the pair split and she left Suffolk, where they had been staying, and returned north to her homeland.
She spent some of her £74million fortune on her wedding to second husband Brian Deans in St Andrews in 2018, but they have also now split up.
She also gave huge amounts to family, with her understood to have handed over as much as £20million, to help "bail them out of every debt".
She has a daughter with Brian but sources say her marriage with the convicted fraudster began to fall apart after he spent millions, and that she kicked him out in March last year.
He runs a pub in Auchterarder, Perthshire, and is said to have claimed a monthly allowance she gave him while they were wed was not enough for him to live on.
It's also believed she had insisted the 43-year-old must sign a pre-nuptial agreement meaning he could not get any of her money and that, as of 2023, her family no longer speak to her.
Jane Park
In 2013, the then-17-year-old became the UK's youngest lottery winner, while she was living with her mum in a council flat in Edinburgh.
She is now said to be worth £3million, having built up a strong social media following and made TV appearances, and lives in a modest three-bedroom home.
Her social media feeds show she enjoys regular holidays, but often flies with budget airlines like Ryanair and easyJet, rather than flying privately.
As well as the luxurious destinations she has visited in her time, she has also opted for tourist hotspots, and was recently seen sipping Bacardi Breezers at a pal's hen do in Benidorm, and has spent thousands on cosmetic surgery.