It's official: Wolverhampton is one of the UK's luckiest places

The city is statistically the fourth best place to strike it rich by playing the National Lottery with 142 players winning more than £50,000 over the past 10 years.

And since the game's launch in 1994, there have been 37 millionaires and 274 prizes of more than £50,000 won in the WV postcode in that time.

For lucky, look no further than Stuart and Denise Powell from Featherstone. They thought their dreams had come true when they scooped £55,500 in 2011 on the Lotto.

But four years later they won big again with £1 million coming their way via the EuroMillions Millionaire Maker.

Six months on from becoming millionaires, the couple revealed how winning had changed their lives – or not, as it turns out.

They live in the same house in Featherstone, Stuart drives the same car, and they both continue to work in their full-time jobs.

"We always played it in the hope we could look after our boys," said Denise who rises at 5am each day to work as a shift manager at N R Evans Distribution in Aldridge.

The couple have bought homes for their three sons, Matthew, aged 27, Adam, 25, and Nathan, 20.

"We wanted to make sure they would be alright, so from day one they have been our priority," Denise added.

The pair can count themselves extra lucky as they scooped the £1m prize thanks to a mistake by a sales assistant in the Co-operative in Lichfield. Lorry driver Stuart, 50, had intended to buy tickets for the £119m mammoth rollover on November 20 last year. But the shop keeper mistakenly got the dates mixed up and processed the tickets for the following midweek draw by mistake.

"At the time I was fuming," said Stuart who buys several tickets for each draw. "But obviously now we are very glad she got it wrong."

Despite being financially secure, they have spent little on luxuries.

However, there is one item that Stuart has had his eye on for a long time. And thanks to his lottery win he now has it – a £38 nail gun.

He explained: "I have a small nail gun that I use for work around the house and it is not fit for purpose. For every birthday and Christmas for as long as I can remember I have dropped hints about upgrading it. But I've never got one. And it became a bit of a joke. So the day after we won our son Matthew sent me a text saying he had finally sorted me a new nail gun."

Stuart and Denise have five children and enjoy going away on holiday.

"Before we won we had some fantastic holidays to America and Canada and other places," said Denise.

"We worked and saved money up to go away and so in that respect our approach to holidays has not changed."

And having the big money hasn't changed their tastes either.

"We still eat at the same places and look for the 2-4-1 on meals or two meals for a tenner," said Denise.

"I'm not a big fan of shopping but when I do I still hunt out a bargain – I won't pay stupid money for clothes."

Stuart added: "We don't feel the need to just spend. We have worked all our lives and enjoyed ourselves."

Their formula for success is simple: Denise chooses numbers that relate to birthdays in the family while Stuart opts for lucky dips.

They are still working and have no plans to give up playing the game. "Of course we still play," said Stuart.

"I always said that if you do not play big then you cannot expect to win big.

"We have always worked and we have always played the lottery since it started and we see no reason to change that."

Other Wolverhampton winners who have gone public with their wins include 18 members of a syndicate from Willenhall-based Arcelor SSC UK steel company who landed a £5,061,750 share of the EuroMillions jackpot in November 2006.

A month earlier Irene and Ronald Jones, from Bilston, had a bumper win after scooping a £9,355,603 share of the Lotto Triple Rollover jackpot

And Tom and Rita Naylor from Wednesfield walked away with a staggering £15,528,285 on the Lotto Extra draw in November 2001 – still the biggest West Midlands win in Lotto history.

Andy Carter, senior winners' advisor for The National Lottery, the man who pays out the big winners, said: "Wolverhampton has enjoyed a good run of wins over the last decade and we hope it continues to stay lucky.

"There are now a massive 4,250 National Lottery millionaires across the country and with more than six new millionaires made every week there is likely to be another local winner made soon."

It isn't just individuals winning big, the entire community benefits from the money raised by The National Lottery. In 2015, 42 grants worth £1,232,921 were distributed to National Lottery-funded projects in the Wolverhampton region.

Each National Lottery player helps to raise more than £34m every week for Good Causes.

This helps fund our athletes competing at Rio, the nation's arts and heritage, and many thousands of projects in local communities across the UK.

"A lot of people at work ask me why I still come in," said Stuart. "But the truth is that I love what I do. We are the same people we were before and money doesn't change that."