LOTTO LOSS
How ticket machine ‘glitch’ saw me LOSE £50,000 lottery jackpot & end up with measly £2 – they get it so wrong
Read on to find out how a 'draw break' had an impact
A NATIONAL Lottery player believes they missed out on a hefty win and ended up with just £2 due to a ticket machine “glitch”.
Dean Smethurst, a supermarket worker, initially thought had won a sizeable £50,000 on the Lotto and immediately started making plans on how to splash the cash, even before it had been officially confirmed.
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When he’d gone down to his local Tesco supermarket in Farnworth, Lancashire, to have his lotto card checked, a message popped up on the till saying he had won.
He was told to contact Camelot as the apparent winnings were too big to be paid out there and then.
When he checked the terms and conditions he discovered that the till's message usually displayed when punters had won upwards of £50,000.
Thinking he was in the money he started making plans about what he was going to do with all that money and told all his pals.
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At the time, he said: "I’d gone in to do a bit of shopping and I thought I’d check to see how I’d gone on in the previous Saturday’s draw.
“The receipt said I’d won a prize the store would not be able to pay out and that I should contact Camelot immediately.
“All the other staff applauded me."
But he had to sweat it out and wait until the following day when Camelot’s phone lines opened and he could put a claim in for his winnings.
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Dean said: "I didn’t sleep because I was so excited.
"My house is like a building site at the moment so that was the first thing that I decided to spend my winnings on.
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"Then I decided to treat the family to a luxury holiday to Barbados.”
Dean’s big dreams though soon went up in a cloud of smoke when he was told his numbers didn’t match and he had actually won three lucky dips, worth £2 each – a grand total of just £6.
He said: "I never thought to check my numbers, I didn't think a company as large as Camelot could have got it wrong, I didn't understand."
The reason was later revealed to be down to the Wednesday lottery draw being in progress while Dean had his Saturday ticket checked, the checkout assistant got that particular receipt message.
Dean said: "When I had purchased the ticket I had bought one for both the Saturday and Wednesday draw.
"As the Wednesday draw was in the process of taking place, it looks like this was an automated message instead which would have been given for any win.
"I was absolutely gutted, It is back to the drawing board now."
At the time, a spokesman for Camelot said: “In this instance, the player attempted to claim a prize during a 'draw break', when National Lottery sales are suspended while a draw takes place.
"The prize couldn’t be paid out at that time - because the ticket was still entered into a 'live' draw - so a validation slip was printed instead.
"To clarify, this generic slip is used for a number of scenarios - it's not exclusively used for high-tier prizes."
Fortunately for Dean, he wasn’t in work that day so he didn’t have to face his colleagues – and was soothed by his mum’s comfort food.
He said: "I just watched television and my mum made me some comfort food, which wasn't much comfort."
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He's not the first disappointed lotto player, punters all over the country have had false wins that they hoped would change their lives.
One couple thought they had - only to be told a payment issue meant they could not claim the prize.
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