Callie Rogers won £1.9m on Lotto at 16. Here’s what happened next

Callie Rogers was 16 and working on the checkout at her local Co-op in Cumbria for £3.60 an hour when she won the lottery.

Her prize of about £1,875,000 matches the Lotto draw on Saturday 28 June 2003, when eight tickets shared the jackpot. At the time, anyone aged 16 or over could play, and she became one of the youngest millionaires the National Lottery had ever made.

Where the money went

She didn’t have a plan, and she has since said nobody her age could have. Over the next few years the money went on:

• Homes for herself, friends and family, worth around £500,000 in total.
• Designer clothes, holidays and parties.
• Cosmetic surgery, including £18,000 on breast operations.
• Loans and gifts to people around her, many never paid back.

“I was exploited because of my age. I had a lot of fake relationships.” Callie Rogers

Growing up overnight

Callie has spoken often about how hard it was to be a teenager with that much money. She said she was forced to change from a child to an adult overnight, and that people treated her differently once they knew.

Within about a decade most of the money had gone, and she later went bankrupt.

Where is she now?

She went back to college, studied social care and has worked as a carer. She is a mum and has lived in Workington, Cumbria. In the latest reports, from early 2025, she was 37.

She also backed calls to raise the minimum age for the lottery. That happened in 2021, when the National Lottery moved from 16 to 18. Her story was one of the ones people pointed to.

What other winners can learn

• Big money needs a plan before it arrives, not after. Get independent advice first.
• Be careful with loans. If you give money, treat it as a gift you won’t see again.
• Think hard about going public. Callie’s age made her a headline for years.

Michael Carroll, the Norfolk binman who won £9.7m a year earlier, went through something similar. You can read his story in our winner stories.