Kid Should Be Banned – Youngest Ever Lotto Winner

Callie Rogers, then aged just 16, was the UK’s youngest ever Lotto winner when landing a £1.875million jackpot sixteen years ago and while admitting that it changed her life, she is adamant it did so for all the wrong reasons.

Rogers, now 32, is calling on Lotto to raise the legal limit for entries to 18 after her own big win apparently made her life a living hell.

Blowing the Jackpot “A Good Thing”

It’s unusual for a major jackpot winner to claim that they are happier now having completely blown more than £1.8million, but that is the case with Callie Rogers.

The Workington girl has been telling her story, one of her landing a fortune at only 16 years of age and how it plummeted her into a vicious cycle of hopelessness. She reportedly suffered abuse, much of it verbal and some of it even physical, and she claims she was bothered by “fake friends” who appeared to want to get their hands on some of her winnings.

Now however, Rogers is glad that the cash has all disappeared and she is calling on government ministers to raise the legal age limit for lottery gambling to 18.

She thinks that she was simply too young to be able to handle the pressure of having all that money, especially as it was made public, and she now wants to do her bit to stop other young people from going through the same thing.

Now a mother of three young children, Callie is back in work and earning a meagre £12,000 a year but insists she has never been any happier, that losing the cash was actually a good thing.

Giving the Money Away

After her win Callie says she was over generous, spending thousands of pounds on gifts for family and friends. At one point, she was given abuse by complete strangers and was even beaten up by two women, apparently jealous of her winnings.

Callie has told how she is still owned as much as £200,000 by her so-called “fake friends” who used her bank card to buy themselves lavish gifts.

This all brings to light a little-known fact about Lotto; that winners are encouraged to parade with the giant cheque for the media but there is always advice given that they should in fact keep their win secret. Many Lotto winners have experienced harassment following jackpot successes including begging letters, threats and strangers even knocking on their door to ask for money.

Government Consultation on Age Limit

There are calls now for a government consultation on raising the Lotto gambling age and Callie has joined in the campaign to bring this up.

The timing seems perfect for ministers to discuss this after several high-profile cases of gambling addiction having had a detrimental effect on children’s mental health and there is no doubt that, at 16, Callie was indeed a child when she won the jackpot.

Having been earning £3.60 an hour as an assistant at a local Co-op store, Callie was suddenly a millionaire and thought even back then that she had too much money. Having been in foster care she moved out after her win, buying a house with her then boyfriend and began frittering away her cash.

The government truly do need to act to stop this sort of thing happening again, particularly in the current political climate.