Denby Sinclair, 58, matched five balls on the National Lottery Set for Life game and won £10,000 every month for 12 months, a prize he discovered late one night and immediately told his wife, Sam.
Sinclair, a sales technician at a car body repair shop, entered a lucky dip after finding himself with spare cash at the end of the month. The ticket paid off: he matched five balls and claimed the 12-month jackpot that in this case means £10,000 a month for a year.
Sam was aboard their boat in Conwy when her husband called. "It had gone midnight, and Denby, who was back at home, had sent me a good night text," she said. "Five minutes later, he was calling me, and I was really concerned."
She first "honestly thought it was a joke," she said, and only believed the news after receiving email confirmation. Once the win was verified, Sam said she could not sleep.
The scale of the prize is exact and simple: £10,000 a month for 12 months. For the Sinclairs that sum has already changed how they are spending their time. They have given money to their children, treated friends to an evening out at their local restaurant and "put money behind the bar" as part of a wider celebration.
Those immediate choices underline the human weight of the win: small, precise payments that still buy visible relief and a chance to act on long-held plans. Both Denby and Sam are qualified sailors, and they have used part of the new funds to firm up plans to skipper a vessel off the Greek coast near Crete — a voyage the couple say they have long wanted.
The broader context is straightforward and often missed in the rush to celebrate: under lottery set for life results in this instance, the jackpot pays out monthly for a single year. That is how Set for Life, the National Lottery game, awarded the Sinclairs their prize, and that time limit is the fact that will shape what the couple can do next.
That limit also creates the story’s tension. A 12-month stream of payments can let the Sinclairs pursue a sailing season, and Sam said, "This is something we've always dreamt of doing, and now we can," but it is not an open-ended income. The couple have to decide whether to use the year to test a new life afloat or to spend the money on family and short-term treats — and their choices in the coming months will determine whether the win is a one-year holiday or a launchpad to something longer.
The timeline of the night makes the win feel accidental as much as fortunate. Denby bought the lucky dip after finding spare cash at month’s end. The call came after midnight while Sam was on the boat in Conwy; she needed the email confirmation before accepting the truth. After that, they began celebrating with family and friends in Greater Manchester, even as they sketched plans for the Greek coast.
The immediate facts leave little mystery: Denby, who works at a car body repair shop and lives with Sam in Diggle, Saddleworth, Greater Manchester, will receive £10,000 each month for 12 months after matching five balls on Set for Life. What remains to be seen is how the Sinclairs will translate a year of payments into long-term change — whether they will spend the year at sea as qualified skippers off Crete, or use the money to shore up lives ashore and share the good fortune with family and friends.
For now, they are "on top of the world," their lives transformed by a windfall that arrived in the small hours and landed first as a very confusing phone call and then as an email that made it real. Their next move is practical and personal: sail, celebrate and decide how to shape a single year of steady income into the future they want.
