AN lottery crew has won half a million pounds, but they're only taking £12,500 each in the "surreal win".
The Guernsey syndicate is taking home £500,000 after winning the Channel Islands Christmas Lottery, but with so many winners they will only take £12,500 each.
Guernsey sold the winning ticket for the second year in a row - but this time it has been split 40 ways.
Winner Judith Tolcher said to the BBC: "It's quite surreal - it's still sinking in to all of the 40 of us who were in it."
Fay Boyd said she checked her ticket about 30 times because she couldn't believe she had won.
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"It's just the fact it's a group of us and it's not just the one winner.
"There's 40 times more the fun rather than just one person."
The syndicate has been running for nine years, with members buying five tickets each and sharing them with the group.
Proceeds from the lottery go to community groups and charities across the Channel Islands.
Jon Taylor, the lottery's presiding officer, said ticket sales were down by about 6% on 2022.
He said the increased cost of living was a factor.
"We still have the same number of people buying tickets, it's still very popular, they just don't buy as many," he said.
The win comes just after the inquest into infamous Lottery winner Mickey Carroll's sister's death.
Mickey, who shot to fame after spending all of his £9.7 million in a few years, said: “There’s not a day goes by where I'm not thinking of her.
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“She is like a breath of fresh air. She could light up any room she went in.
“We were like two peas in a pod like."
Mickey, from Elgin, Scotland, was just 19 and working as a bin man, when he won his £9,736,131 jackpot in November 2002.
