IF YOU'RE thinking of a flutter on the Lottery this weekend, you may have a better chance than you'd expect of winning a few quid.
The National Lottery has revealed that Croydon is one of the luckiest towns in the country, when it comes to scooping the jackpot – or at least a nice little earner.
The CR postcode is ranked 16th for the amount of big prize-winners (£50,000 or above) per head of population in the last three years.
And it seems Croydon is getting luckier, as this represents a vast improvement from its ranking of 48th across the 19 years of the Lottery since its 1994 launch.
To date, 177 people in the CR postcodes have won sums of at least £50,000, with 14 Croydon millionaires created by picking all six numbers correctly.
Town newsagents say they serve hundreds of people every day, trying to join the ranks of Croydon Lottery winners.
B Patel, owner of the YRB Newsmarket on George Street, said: "Everybody wants money, don't they?
"We sell three to four thousand tickets each week.
"Our customers don't buy lots of tickets each either, maybe just one or two."
And while Mr Patel has not met any millionaires, he said he had heard about lots of big winners.
He added: "Plenty of people have won thousands of pounds. One of my customers won £100,000 but that is probably the most."
Uday News, in Wellesley Road, which is run by husband and wife Uday Kumar and Supreetha Uday, normally sells 2,000 tickets per week but a lot more for the big draws.
Mrs Uday said: "You see an upturn in trade depending on the size of the prize.
"Pensioners come here every single week to buy tickets, even if they have never won anything.
"They don't ever moan about it, they just come back and buy their ticket. But I don't think they want the money for themselves.
"They always say they would give it to charity if they won or maybe to their family."
The National Lottery's statistics include both winners who have chosen to go public with their windfall and those who have shunned publicity.
A Lottery spokesman said: "Maybe The Old Palace, the home of the Archbishops of Canterbury for over five centuries, has given Croydon a dose of divine luck."
