Electric wheelchair for pensioner after £36,000 bingo win

Forty-six years of playing bingo has paid off for a 75-year-old Leighton man who won more than £36,000 at the Mecca Club in High Road, Chadwell Heath.

The winner, who wants to remain anonymous,  plays three or four times per week, but he still couldn’t believe it when he was told he had won the jackpot.

It was on Saturday, 16 February that he won the National Bingo Game prize of £34,465, plus the Regional prize of £2,084 and the house prize of £81 after completing a full house in 41 numbers, the lowest call in any of the 470 clubs playing nationwide.

“I was shaking like a leaf when it was announced how much I had won and I had to go and get a cup of tea,” he said, “When I got home and told my wife she didn’t believe me at first because I had joked with her once before about winning the big one.  I had to show her the form the club gave me to prove it.”

The man intends to use the money to buy a new electric wheelchair for himself, new furniture and carpets for his home, and to treat his two children and two grandchildren.