The winning syndicate for this year's Channel Islands lottery say it comes at a bittersweet time.

Last night (21 December) a group of female golfers from the Grande Mare were shocked to see that one of their tickets had in fact won the grand prize of £500,000.

The forty women have agreed to split the money - taking home £12,500 each.

One of the women, Fay, says they have been buying tickets together for years:

"Obviously the Grande Mare is closing early next year so this was the last year.

We had all been making comments thinking how wonderful would it be to win.

But for it to actually happen is just the perfect end - it's just incredible."

She says she didn't believe her eyes when the winner number was announced:

"The number came up on the TV screen and I glanced at it and thought we do have some tickets beginning with 408.

I went to my spreadsheet and there was the number and I couldn't believe it.

I got my husband to have a look and yeah we realised we had won.

I sort of ran around the house screaming at the top of my lungs waving the ticket around and started telling the other 39 ladies the good news."