A pub which boasts of three million-pound lottery wins has earned an affectionate nickname from its clientele. Regulars at the Mallard now refer to their pub as the lucky duck!

Sometimes regular players who haven’t won a significant amount in the lottery just get into the habit of buying tickets without ever expecting to win. And then they get really surprised when they hit the big one.

Sometimes when blessings come, people are caught unawares. Take the case of Martin Creighton who works as a groundsman; he had to read about a missing lottery winner from his place to do another check of his tickets and discover he’s a wealthy man.

A video of the latest winner of the Lebanese Lottery has been shared thousands of times in social media. While the video is in Arabic, you can feel the emotion as the  man describes the effect of the win on his life.

The Iowa Lottery issued an apology after a mistake caused sensitive data to be released.

This time data about 2,967 winners of prizes $600 or more in 2011 were provided to a professor of journalism at the Grand Valley State University in Michigan.

This week’s stories of lottery joy begins with a Virginia couple who thought the had won $400, only to discover the  win was for $200,000.

Across the pond the national lottery made retirement sweeter for a retired care worker and an Ashford couple who each won £1 million. 

Big blessings come when you least expect it. This is what retired care worker Violet Grahamslaw learned. Actually, you can say that blessings were waiting for her, but she just wasn’t so attentive.

Amy and Adam Pryor were struggling to keep up with the medical needs of their seriously ill daughter – and then lady luck came to the rescue.

When Kenny and Cathy Robin Beavers won what they thought was $400 playing Powerball, Kenny wanted to give the ticket to their daughter as a wedding present.