Bermuda's mysterious lottery winner cloaked himself in secrecy yesterday, as it emerged his jackpot scoop may be much smaller than his 15 million claim.

Patrick McErleam, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, may have raked in 1.4 million instead of the bumper winnings he claimed yesterday.

And he was keeping out of the spotlight as news of his extravagant claims even made the front page of his home town evening newspaper.

Friends of Patrick, who works as a waiter at the Hamilton Princess, said he was privately claiming to have won a five-way share of 7 million.

At first, he boasted his winnings on the British National Lottery came to 15 million.

It was impossible to confirm his story -- because the "winning'' ticket is held by his 83-year-old mother in Belfast and the UK lottery has strict privacy laws.

But a spokeswoman did confirm last Saturday's 7 million pot was shared by five winning tickets.

And one of Patrick's neighbours at Princess-owned accommodation said the Ulsterman was "shocked'' that news of his new-found fortune had been made public.

The man, speaking near Patrick's studio flat at Faraway, Warwick, said: "He said the real figure was a share of 7 million.

"I don't know how it came about that he said it was 15 million.

"All he said was that he was keeping his job and he had a lawyer looking after his money.'' Patrick first decided to have a flutter when he gave his brother Martin, on holiday from Northern Ireland, some cash to take back to their mother for a lottery ticket.

But the 34-year-old, who works as a waiter at Harley's Restaurant, was not at work yesterday to reveal more about life on millionaire row.

He was not answering telephone calls at home. And only his pet dog, Dorothy, was coming to the door when The Royal Gazette knocked for him with a celebratory bottle of champagne.

Jackpot winner says `it won't change me' But it has emerged that Patrick's lucky numbers would have been 2, 10, 11, 27, 32 and 38.

Patrick, whose family run a bakery business, said on Thursday: "I don't even have a clue what the winning numbers were.

"All I know is that my mother filled in a ticket for me and now I'm going to put my winnings in the bank.

"It won't change me in any way. I had friends over visiting and I gave them a few dollars, telling them to ask my mum to do the lottery for me.

"It was just a one-off, actually. I left it to her to pick the numbers and then she called me on Sunday. I had been working and missed her call but she caught me later on.'' Patrick, who came to Bermuda as a 19-year-old, used to live in the Isle of Man. His parents, now retired, are at home in Belfast.

And one of his colleagues at Harley's added: "Patrick's really private. He hasn't said much about this at all, but he did buy us all a drink.

"All we know is that he used to work at Cambridges Beaches before coming here a couple of years ago.'' The head waiter at Harley's gave Patrick the day off when news of his winnings filtered through.

Patrick had already turned up -- to collect his weekly pay cheque -- and immediately went to the hotel's personnel director to say he was keeping his job.

AWARD AWD