A MAN has become the first person to win a £1,000 plasma television at an arcade in Southend, but spent nearly £2,000 and 100 hours of his time in doing so.

When Mark Barrett from Waltham Abbey first saw the 42 inch television at the Adventure Island arcade he vowed "one day that will be mine."

Twenty visits and 33,600 tokens later, the 37-year-old's dream came true.

The warehouse manager spent hours playing his favourite game 'Deal or No Deal,' winning tokens rather than money every time he was successful.

The television could originally be won with 121,000 tokens, but each day the total went down, and eventually Mr Barrett secured enough tokens to take home the prize possession.

He said: "I was over the moon when I won and I was so pleased that I was the first person to ever win the TV.

"I would rather spend £30 to £40 on playing these games as you are guaranteed to win prizes. There are about three or four different games that you can win tokens on and I would probably be in there for about one or two hours at a time."

Mark visited the sea front attraction at least twice a month with his wife Sandra and their 15-year-old daughter Sophie.

He said: "My wife thinks I'm a bit nuts. I've got no idea how much money I spent altogether. I don't know if I could have bought the TV with the money I spent, but I probably could have."

Now Mark has his sights set on a second challenge - winning another plasma television.

He said: "I haven't been back yet since I won but I'm going at the end of this month and I'm probably going to work towards another TV and start collecting the tokens again.

"I might be the second person ever to win the TV twice."