by Alex Wellman Lotto punters hoping it could be them might find their odds improving if they head to one particular shop. Munro newsagents in Temple Road, Cricklewood, appear to be one of the luckiest shops in the country after scoopin

by Alex Wellman

Lotto punters hoping 'it could be them' might find their odds improving if they head to one particular shop.

Munro newsagents in Temple Road, Cricklewood, appear to be one of the luckiest shops in the country after scooping a national jackpot winner.

The shop, which has also had a large number of five ball winners, including one who only just missed out on a �12 million jackpot, had a punter strike gold three weeks ago.

Pravin Patel, owner, said: "The first we knew about it was when the Lotto people contacted us and told us that we had sold a ticket to a jackpot winner.

"They would not tell us who it was, where they live or how much they won but they said it was in the millions and we gave them the winning ticket.

"We have a lot of winners here and not just the �10 ones either. Since we started the lottery we have had well into the tens of five ball winners."

Although the shop has their fare share of winners they have also had the odd person whose luck just does not appear to too good.

Mr Patel said: "When I heard we had a jackpot winner I thought, blimey we almost had two here as we would have had two but one man was very unlucky at Christmas.

"The machines the machines went down all over the place so he could not buy his ticket but his numbers came up."

When asked why he thought the shop was so successful in producing winning numbers, Mr Patel said it was down to his customers.

Mr Patel said: "I think we are just a blessed shop really. We have a really good sense of community here and everyone looks out for each other."

Never one to miss a trick the Times took the opportunity to buy eight tickets from the lucky Lotto store in the hope that it could be us.

Although we did get six numbers during Saturday's draw, dreams of holidaying in the Caribbean came crashing back down to earth, after we realised they were split across four different tickets. alex.wellman@archant.co.uk