People in Brentwood, Ongar and Harold have spent millions of pounds hoping for a big cash windfall from the national lottery, but it is in the Billericay and Wickford area where the gambling bug seems to have bitten hardest.

£48,540,192 has been spent on tickets since 1995 in the Billericay Parliamentary constituency - which includes Billericay, Wickford and Pitsea.

This is more than £10million above the national average and means almost £200,000 was being spent every week.

The figures were broken down to each constituency after MPs had asked for more information about National Lottery ticket sales and they show the Brentwood and Ongar constituency lags behind Billericay by around £16,000,000.

As much as £32,402,433 has been spent in Brentwood and Ongar since the National Lottery started five years ago but this is still £6million below the national average. Meanwhile across the whole of Upminster sales have been £38,694,887, almost exactly matching the average of £38,249,707.

A spokesman for the National Lottery said the figures had to be looked at with caution: "You have to be careful when you are looking at the figures. You cannot assume they directly relate to the people in the constituency. They are calculated from the sales recorded at our various outlets in each area.

"The level of sales may be due to people coming into the area for various reasons such as shopping or tourism."

In five years there have been only 17 jackpot winners made public in the whole of Essex, but it seems there are plenty more hoping their lucky numbers will come up.

More people may be thinking 'it could be you' in Billericay than in Brentwood but both areas are still a long way off from the sales seen in the London constituency of Westminster where sales have been a startling £188.8million.

This is largely put down to tourists and the huge number of people passing through the area.

All these figures are in stark contrast to the remote Western Isles constituency where figures show only a measly £9.5million worth of tickets were sold.

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