LOTTERY advisors are the lucky people who spend their working week paying out millions to National Lottery Winners.

Kathy Garrett has been helping new winners for more than five years and said she is often greeted with a glass of champagne when she arrives at a winner’s home.

She said: “I’m very lucky with my job, I’m always that welcome visitor.

“Quite often the champagne bottles are open when I arrive. I went to pay out to a syndicate at 10am and I could hear them when I got out the car because they were celebrating in the garden.”

Advisors help everybody who wins more than £50,000, regardless of whether they decide to go public or not.

Kathy said there have been some unusual dream purchases over the years, including a new hoover and an electric cheesegrater.

She said: “People want to buy all sorts of strange things but the cheese grater was the most unusual thing. It’s just something they could splash out on.

“I see such lovely people and hear such lovely stories.

“There was a £1.6million jackpot winner who ran a butcher’s shop. I turned up on Christmas Eve to pay out and of course before Christmas people turned up to buy their turkeys.

“He had to go out to sell a turkey every couple of minutes – he didn’t want to let anybody down even though he had just become a millionaire.”

Kathy said most people want to be paid straight away when they find out they have won but that is not always the case.

“A man won £35 million recently and he had the decorators in so he didn’t want me to come over until the work was done. He was the most chilled out person about winning,” she said.

Kathy said she loves her job, even if it is quite an unusual career, and part of her work is helping winners with banking and independent financial advice.

Unfortunately, Kathy is not allowed to play the lottery herself because she works for Camelot but that has not stopped her thinking about what she would do with a few million pounds.

She said: “If I won I would love to help my kids – it’s my dream to just support them.

“I can’t play so the pressure is on my mum to win.

“But I just love being part of that winning experience - I see what a difference it makes to people’s lives.

“The best thing about a big win is the choice it gives people to do things and make life a bit better.”