YORK'S latest big bingo winner has revealed that she only started playing regularly in April.

As was reported in later editions of last night's Evening Press, Pamela Dickinson, 37, from Acomb, won more than £81,000 while playing at the Mecca Club in Fishergate, York, on Monday last week.

She kept right on playing after her big win - and by last Thursday she had won another £10!

Her success in the National Bingo Game last week came less than two months after another player at the same club, Jean Pilmoor, won £202,000.

Pamela, who prefers to be known by her second name, Jane, said she played a bit of bingo in 1993, but "never won a halfpenny," and she only began playing regularly three or four months ago, when a friend asked if she would like to go.

She said she planned to buy a new car for her father and also for herself and her fianc, and she might also bring forward their wedding to later this year.

She said that after she had won the club's own £100 prize last week, by completing a "full house" in only 37 numbers, she knew she was in with a chance of winning the big national prize as well. But she had to wait about half-an-hour before she found she had won it.

"It felt like an eternity," she said.

Updated: 10:45 Tuesday, July 27, 2004