Pro gambler set for roll-over Lottery tilt

A LEGENDARY gambler based in Cheshire, who has won millions on horseracing, is taking his first serious shot at the National Lottery after calculating that tomorrow’s £58m draw is good value.

Richard Brocklebank, known as the Scoop6 Squirrel, who has landed more than £10m for his syndicates on pool bets, uses mathematics to calculate the odds and viability of his bets.

And his not-so-secret squirrel formula – revealed on a weekly basis for members of his online www.scoop6superclub.com syndicate – has identified the potential for profit out of this weekend’s lottery.

Less than two weeks ago on Boxing Day, his online syndicate landed yet another bumper share of £1,169,494 as one of 44 winning ticketholders on the popular Tote Scoop6 bet featuring races on Channel 4’s racing programme.

Dad-of-two Brocklebank, 50, from Hyde, said: “I was initially highly sceptical of the introduction of extra balls in the National Lottery, but the 14 consecutive rollovers and the new rule that any rollover of £50m or above must be paid out on the next draw, provide tremendous value this Saturday.

“It is still a longshot, but with the increased number of balls taking the odds of a player finding all six balls to 45 million-to-one, the likelihood is this week the top payout will be five balls and the bonus ball and the odds of that are 7.5 million-to-one, so that is better odds than the old 49 ball lottery of 14 million-to-one.

“It remains a massive outsider, but by forming a syndicate we are improving our chances by buying thousands of tickets and among them we could just have the one.

“Our members would be happy to share £58m with another 200 or so individuals, so we will be playing with a series of perms that we will explain on our website to those who join up.

“If we played 7,500 lottery lines, then our chances of getting the five numbers and the bonus ball is reduced to one in a thousand, people win in the bookmakers, like William Hill or Betfred, all the time at odds of 1,000-1 for just a double or a treble on horses or sport. It happens and we’re improving our chances of it happening to us.

“We generally stick to the horses on the Tote, plus football pool betting via Colossus Bets, and last year we got returns of more than £206,000 for our members, but the real value is in an outright single ticket win.

“The higher cost of the £2 lottery ticket was another negative at first, but the introduction of extra raffle prizes, and the making of more millionaires, has made it more appealing and the rollovers are what really rock my boat.”