A woman who won a fortune playing bingo ran out of luck - when she failed to declare her windfall to the benefits agencies.
Josephine McGlade was over the moon when she bagged nearly £75,000 playing the online game.
But the 55-year-old, who claimed benefits due to her ill health, was prosecuted because she did not disclose her win to the Department for Work and Pensions and Kirklees Council.
McGlade, of Sheepridge Road in Sheepridge, said that she didn’t tell anyone because she spent most of the cash on her family and friends.
But she pleaded guilty to two charges of dishonestly failing to notify a change of circumstances likely to affect her entitlement to a benefit.
The charges were dated between November 2015 and May 2016 and related to her failure to give full details of her capital.
McGlade, who suffers from severe arthritis, claimed housing benefit and employment and support allowance.
She claimed these benefits on the basis that she was unable to work due to ill health and had no income or capital.
Jill Seddon, prosecuting, told Kirklees magistrates: “The money was paid into her account and she was aware that she must let the DWP know about any change of her circumstances.
“Information then came to light that she won £74,989 from an online gambling site.
“This was won by her in October 2015 and paid into her Royal Bank of Scotland account.
“She did not declare that she’d won a very substantial amount of money but said that she gave most of it away and didn’t think of it as hers any more.”
The amount of benefits overpaid to McGlade as a result of the fraud totalled £5,700, magistrates were told.
Mike Sisson-Pell, mitigating, said that his client was sat at home playing online bingo and her husband thought that she was joking when she said that she’d won.
He told magistrates that “being the type of woman she is” McGlade’s thoughts immediately turned to how she could help her loved ones.
She gave her son money to buy his £60,000 council house rather than take out a loan because she “would fritter it away and wanted him to have bricks and mortar.”
Some £15,000 then came back into her bank account but she gave the rest of this away, giving £2,000 to each of her four other children and buying her daughter a new car for work.
He said that she admitted that while she still had a large amount of the money she should have informed the authorities and this would have seen some reduction in her benefits.
He told magistrates: “The facts of this case start with the stuff dreams are made of.
“She didn’t keep a single penny for herself but in doing what she did she fell foul of the law.
“The local authority found out because on the application form for the house there was a question about where the money came from and she put that she’d had a win.
“Whilst it is an offence of dishonesty it isn’t as blatant as some people you may have heard about.
“It’s nice when people like her have a bit of luck and unfortunate that this bit of luck has brought her before the court for dishonesty.”
Magistrates fined McGlade, who has since paid back the money to the benefits agencies, £80 and ordered her to pay £85 court costs.
