Spettacolo
Hundreds of Brits Claim to Have Won £33 Million in the Lotto But "Lost Their Ticket"
On 9 January 2016 , UK National Lottery operator Camelot announced that two winning tickets would share the biggest-ever UK Lotto jackpot of £66 million.
Four days later an elated Scottish couple by the names of David & Carol Martin were awarded their share worth £33 million. When no other claimant approached them, Camelot revealed on 21 January that the second ticket had been sold in Worcester . It urged players to "check, double-check and triple-check" their tickets.
On 23 January 2016 , a woman from Worcester presented herself to newsagent Mr. Natu Patel . She claimed to have purchased the £33 million ticket, but to have since washed it in a pair of jeans. Mr. Patel told the BBC "The barcode was visible, but had faded away and so had the serial number. So we secured the ticket on a piece of card, put it in a polybag and then I asked her to send it off to Camelot".
Since then, hundreds of people from Worcester have appealed to Camelot, all claiming they bought the winning £33 million ticket, and all saying their ticket was lost or damaged.
Had the winner used a messenger service like theLotter.com, they would have been immediately notified of their win, been able to access a scanned ticket online, and have their physical ticket stored in a safe. The site has established offices in dozens of countries physically purchasing official tickets on behalf of players. In the UK it purchases official tickets for the €131m EuroMillions as well as the UK Lotto on behalf of overseas players. Since it was founded more than a decade ago, theLotter.com has distributed more than $45 million in prizes to more than 1 million lottery winners, with recent big winners being an Iraqi man who won the American lottery late 2015 and a man from El Salvador who won the $1 million second prize in the $1.6 billion US Powerball earlier in January 2016 .
Traditionally, paper tickets have been the only proof, but as millions of lotto prizes go unclaimed each year due to lost, damaged or forgotten-about tickets, one could argue it's time for changes.
Contact:
theLotter
Tel: +44-20-3150-0476
Email: support@thelotter.com