Michael Carroll (lottery winner)

Michael Carroll (born 29 March 1983 in Swaffham, Norfolk) is an English winner of the UK National Lottery.

A former binman, Carroll won £9,736,131 on the National Lottery in November 2002, aged 19. He enjoyed a celebrity status for a time in the British tabloid media as a "Lotto lout" and the self-proclaimed "King of Chavs".

Michael Carroll's mother worked in a canning factory and his father was an RAF engineer. When Carroll was 18 months old, his father was jailed in a military prison for 11 years for stabbing a couple after getting into a fight at a dance. His parents separated when he was seven years old; his father died from a heart attack when Carroll was 10. He had several stepfathers, one of whom would lock him in his room for hours after hitting him. Carroll stated he was dyslexic, had ADHD, and was barely literate by the time he finished secondary school.

When Carroll was 13, he received a custodial sentence for shoplifting and was sent to the Hollesley Bay Prison in Suffolk where he reports that he learned to read and write. When Carroll won the Lottery at the age of 19, he was employed part-time as a binman. At the time of his win, Carroll did not have a bank account, and tried opening one at Coutts as recommended by the lottery company. Coutts refused his application, which Carroll later ascribed to his criminal record.

Soon after winning his fortune, Carroll stated he would not be tempted into spending his money lavishly and only wanted to buy a three-bedroom house near a lake, where he could go fishing. As a fan of Rangers, Carroll invested up to a million pounds of his winnings via Rangers Financial Management, from whom the football club receive a share of profits on the financial services they sell.

In 2005, Carroll participated in a celebrity boxing match in which he seemed to be defeated by Mark Smith, formerly a star of TV show Gladiators under the name Rhino, but the fight was officially declared a draw by the judges. Also in 2006, he was the subject of the documentary Michael Carroll: King of Chavs.

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