Britain’s luckiest taxi driver Amo Riselli drove around with the £24 million ticket in his GLOVE BOX for two days before realising he’d scooped the jackpot.
Dad-of-five Amo won almost exactly four years after losing his partner Donna Scibberras, 41, who suffered a fatal heart attack on December 16, 2013.
He scooped the windfall on December 27 but didn’t find out until he went to his local shop to check the numbers on December 29.
Amo, who lives in a modest £180,000 semi-detached house in Gloucester, is planning to splash out on a new four-bedroom property with a swimming pool …. and a Ferrari.
He said: “I always buy three lines for the lotto draws on Wednesday and Saturday and save them up to check them all at the same time.
“I try to get my tickets checked in the same shop and I have always said, ‘one day this machine is going to start smoking red hot because I will have hit the big one’.
“After I scanned the first ticket at the shop the machine made a weird noise. The shopkeeper said I’d matched five numbers and the bonus ball.
“She said it was a large amount so the machine couldn’t pay out and told me to call Camelot.
“I ran to my sister’s hair salon next door and told her I thought I’d won £250,000 because of the five numbers and bonus ball.
“I then rang my brother Marco and told him but he said ‘no that’s not right’.
“I was shaking like a leaf and I told him I’d won £250,000.
“He said he didn’t understand how that could be as he’d already checked his own ticket and didn’t remember that was the winning amount.
“He asked what numbers I got and when I told him he cried ‘you’ve won the whole jackpot of £24 million.’
“I couldn’t believe I’d had a ticket worth £24 million in my glove box for two days. It’s amazing.
“I will miss all my friends at work as we really have a laugh together, but I’ve decided I’m going to retire, just because now I can.”
“It’s an amazing feeling and I’m absolutely over the moon.”
Amo was joined in the celebrations by his old pal, England and Lions rugby legend Phil Vickery.
Phil Vickery said: “Me and Amo go back years. He was my trusted taxi driver and would take me everywhere.
“He would take me to London for games and pick me up late at night, honestly you could not hope to meet a nicer, more trustworthy guy.
“This win could not have happened to a nicer bloke, I didn’t believe it when I heard he had won, I thought it was a wind-up.
“We get along great, he knows more about me than a lot of people, you get to know a lot about a person when you spend as much time in a car as we have.
“I just hope to get a go of his Ferrari now.”
