Island Life Magazine Ltd October/ November 2012 | Page 55

INTERVIEW

What a job! Dianne tells lucky
winners they have hit jackpot
By Peter White
I have to say it was a real pleasure to
travel to Yarmouth to meet Dianne
Thompson CBE. And without
hesitation I must add that I really hope
to meet Dianne again, but this time at
her office in Watford.
That would almost certainly mean
that I had won in excess of £50,000,
and probably a million pounds or
more, playing the Lottery!
Dianne is chief executive of Camelot,
the company responsible for running
Lotto, Thunderball, Scratch Cards and
the Euro Millions lotteries, and as such
is responsible for handing over those
massive life-changing cheques to the
lucky jackpot winners.
She has been with Camelot since
1996, and has not only made hundreds
of people happy by telling them they
have hit the jackpot, but has also
seen attempted scams and frauds, and
nearly saw the collapse of Camelot
when it appeared the lottery licence
had been lost to Richard Branson’s
Virgin empire.
Camelot survived, Dianne took
charge, and now she gives Island Life
readers an intriguing insight into life
at Lottery HQ.
So what happens when you check
your lottery numbers and suddenly
realise – it is you! That is when Dianne
and her team swing into action to
ensure as smooth a passage as possible.
She explained: “If the win is over
£50,000 then you have to interact with
us. That is good because it enables us
to assess who needs help. Of course
not everyone does, because there are
winners who are already millionaires,

and just pop their winnings into the
bank with the rest of their money.
“But for other people £50,000
changes their life. In fact one lady on
a remote Scottish island once won
£4,200. Her eyesight had failed and
she could no longer drive her car, so
she bought a state of the art tricycle
to get around. For her, that was life
changing!”
Dianne continued: “Big winners
phone us and speak to an advisor, who
takes them through a series of basic
security questions. As you can imagine
every Saturday night we get a lot of

'Most of the
time people
are at home,
in shock.'
people who have had a bit too much to
drink trying to tell us they have won.
The only thing I don’t know about
a winning ticket is who bought it. I
know where it was bought; what day
of the week; what time of day, lucky
dip or your own numbers – I know all
that instantly.
“So if someone can answer three
or four questions relating to that
information over the phone we know
they are genuine. Then within half an
hour of the call coming in one of our

winner’s advisers is in touch to talk
through the process, and assess what
we need to do to help them – if they
want anonymity or whatever. We can
whip people away and put them in a
safe house so no one can find them for
a while if that is what they want.
“But most of the time people are
at home, in shock. We give them the
choice of seeing them at their home,
or they can come to our offices. One
winning syndicate of builders came
to our office one Monday morning,
received their cheque, and asked to
celebrate with champagne and chips.
But they didn’t like the champagne
and quietly tipped it into a nearby
plant pot.”
Publicity after a big win is always
a key issue, and Camelot are not
allowed to try to persuade winners to
go public, although obviously it helps
the company if there are pictures of
nice, smiley winners clutching huge
cheques. But in fact of all the big
winners, only 20 per cent agree to
publicity.
“The people who take publicity
usually fall into three categories,”
explained Dianne. “They are usually
in a syndicate, and one of them will
say something; if a win is so huge that
if you are going to get any benefit
from it you have to be known, and if
you get ‘shopped’ by someone who
has found out. The latter tend to be
distant relatives or neighbours, who
are not going to get a cut, so they sell
the story to a newspaper for £500.”
Camelot also run a ‘Millionaires’
Club’ which brings together big
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