Dunstable man plans family trip to Oz after winning £2m with Sky Vegas

Gary Bailey, a 56-year-old IT manager, was playing a Jackpot King game on Saturday (March 17) when the huge jackpot dropped, from just a £2 stake.

The win couldn’t have come at a better time for Gary, who is married to Claire with four children.

He said: “It’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I’ve got a fairly new job which I’m really enjoying and we’ve got four kids who are trying to get their first step on the property ladder, so being able to give them some help will be fantastic.

“Then we’ll be upgrading our holiday to first class when we go to Australia at the end of the year. One of my daughter’s boyfriends, his parents emigrated out to Australia a number of years ago, so we were thinking of going out there with them. We’re definitely going now!”

Gary had only been playing the game for a short time when the jackpot dropped.

“I’d won on the Sky Bet Football Boost earlier in the day, so I had a bit of money in my account and started playing through.

“I always hoped I’d win the jackpot, my mum passed away earlier last year and I always think she’s looking out for me, but when it fell, I was still in total shock.

“When the jackpot message flashed up, I had to carry on playing a couple more times just to check that it was still saying £2 million.

“I was starting to shake a little bit and then went upstairs to wake Claire, my wife to show her my account balance.

“It was a surreal moment, to say the least.”

Gary joins a select group of Sky Vegas millionaires, including Mike from Eastbourne who scooped £1.2m in December.

The biggest remaining Sky Vegas jackpot now stands at £941,219.

Remembering the winning moment, Gary said: “The Reel King passed and I thought I’m not going to get that then, it’ll be one of the other numbers, and then it just stopped. I thought ah!

“And I just sat there and I’ve always thought when you get a jackpot there would be fireworks and all the lights coming through, but it was just like there’s the number, then it disappeared - and then it went back to that Top Cat game!

“I was like, ‘Oh OK, did that really happen’? So then I actually had to play Top Cat for three or four more goes just to watch my number start going down - and to actually make sure it was a real number and that actually the money was coming down!”

Gary’s wife, Claire, added: “He just came into the room and turned the light on, with his phone in his hand, and said ‘Look at this’ - yeah he was literally shaking - then he said ‘Look at my balance’.

“I don’t even know what that number says, what is that number!

“And then when he said it, I went ‘You can’t have won, that’s not real!’ We literally just lay in bed all night looking at each other and laughing, thinking: ‘This can’t be real - this doesn’t happen to us; we’re just normal people!’”.