Dad wins £3.75million after placing bet on phone when wife popped to loo
Christmas came early for one man when he won £3.79million on an online casino bet after placing £1 while his wife was on the toilet.
Tommy and Shelley Roche were playing the Bet365 game together. And when Shelley went to the loo, Tommy won the jackpot on The Pig Wizard fruit machine game from a £1 spin.
As a result, the family were able to move from their three-bed council house in Eltham, south east London to a £850,000, six-bed pad in Dover, Kent with stables.
Their kids - aged 12, 10, nine, seven, five, three, one, and eight months at the time of the win in 2019 - had never been abroad up until that point, but they were able to swap holidays in Sheerness for dream trips to Disneyland.
The council house in Eltham that Tommy and Shelley Roche lived in (Google Street View)Speaking at the time, Shelley, 30, said: "We were both playing it but Tommy was holding the phone. We put £58 in our online account and it was £1 per go. I went to the loo and came back as it was rolling in. I couldn't believe it. I thought he was going to win like £16.
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"It was the first time we played that game. It's like a fruit machine, you put your stake on and press 'start'. I was trying to ring my brother, my sister, his mum. We were trying to ring everyone. We had to wait until the next day to get the money. We never thought we'd win that. We thought it was a computer error."
The couple have been together since they were 15 (Triangle News)Tommy had been out of work since he worked at a recycling centre two years ago. Shelley was a full-time carer to one of their sons who has ADHD.
Apart from buying a house, the couple said they planned to invest in property to rent back to the council and businesses. "We've been together since we were 15 and married for two years," Shelley said.
"I'm a carer for my son who has ADHD. He needs to be taken to school which is a little way away and take the other kids to two different schools. Tommy used to work at a recycling centre a couple of years ago. But other than that he hasn't worked.
Tommy and Shelley Roche were playing the Bet365 game together (Triangle News)"We are on child tax credit and child benefit. We live in a three-bedroom semi-detached council house. The past we've come from we haven't had much luck, I lost my nan in 2015 and in 2016 I lost my mum."
She added: "We are buying a six bedroom place, with a one-bedroom granny annexe. It has planning permission for a two-bedroom bungalow. It has horse stables and three acres of land. We like Dover, it's out of the way and quiet and near the seaside so the kids will love it with the beach. These kids will have to move schools.
"We are going to invest in buying some other houses and renting them back to the council. And maybe buying a salon or a cake shop."
Shelley was on the toilet when her husband won the jackpot (Triangle News)She added: "Tommy has bought a new shape Transit van and an ST 3 Ford Focus I've bought myself a new Vauxhall Corsa and we are going to buy a BMW X5. We had one car before, it was a VW Beetle. Tommy won't get rid of it.
"We didn't have a car for us all to go out in. So we didn't go out past 4pm when the kids were home from school. We had to use public transport. I want to go to New York and Disneyland with the kids. But I've got to get passports for them. They haven't got them. We have only been to Sheerness."
The overnight millionaires scooped £3,790,637.42 winnings "It's truly life changing," Shelley said.
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