Medway luckiest for lottery wins

There are now 13 millionaires in Ilford

Medway Towns has toppled Ilford as the luckiest postcode for Lottery windfalls, it has emerged.

The Kent ME postcode is the number one location based on the number of top prize-winning entries as a proportion of its adult population.

The area knocked Ilford in Essex off the top spot it had held since 2002.

It is only the third time since 1994 the Medway Towns postcode has featured in the National Lottery's top 10 luckiest postcode areas.

Lucky towns: Medway Towns Ilford Romford Newcastle-upon-Tyne Dartford Bradford Teesside Sunderland Hull Perth

Medway Towns has one top prize-winning ticket for every 6,119 adults who are eligible to play the Lottery, compared with Ilford in second place with one in every 6,839.

A National Lottery spokesman said: "It's great to see so many new postcodes in the top 10, some for the first time ever."

Other new entries in the top 10 are the Teesside (TS), Sunderland (SR) and Hull (HU) postcodes.

Newcastle has increased from 10th to fourth place in the luck league over the past year.

Total prize winnings for the top 10 luckiest postcodes since the National Lottery launched in 1994 come to just over £1bn.

One in every 9,423 of people in the UK who are eligible to play the Lottery has now won a share of a National Lottery jackpot.

This compares with around one in 19,000 when figures were first published in 2002.