Second time lucky for latest winner of Heads or Tails

The Independent seems to bring good luck to Steve Williams. Eight years ago, the engineer won an all-expenses-paid trip to New York in a competition in the paper. And last week, he was at a cousin's wedding when he learnt he had became the ninth reader to receive £10,000 in the paper's Heads or Tails competition.

"I guess I'm pretty lucky," said Mr Williams. "The trip to New York was amazing and now this. It was a complete shock. We were already at the wedding but we had a couple of extra bottles of wine to celebrate."

Mr Williams predicted that Tesco's share prices would close lower on Friday than it had the night before to become the winner from a possible 788 entrants who had all answered the four previous day's questions correctly. "Usually I would check the share prices the day after to see if my guess was right but I couldn't because I was at a hotel for the wedding. I was very anxious but it was worth it."

"It's come at an ideal time for me," said the father of two boys, Ashley, 16, and Connor, 10, who has recently had his working week reduced from five days to four. "I'm incredibly happy. I'm going to buy a car and do my bit to help the economy."

Mr Williams said that he had no system or help to make his predictions: "I just guessed all of the answers. It's not rocket science, is it? I don't suppose even the professionals could have predicted all those accurately without a bit of luck."