Britain’s unluckiest woman misses out on £178m Euromillions jackpot as every number just ONE out
BRITAIN’S unluckiest woman lost out on the £178mil Euromillions jackpot – because each of her numbers was just one digit away from the winning seven balls.
Tayla Octave, 19, could not believe it when she checked her lucky dip row against Friday’s mega draw and saw she had been so close to scooping the top prize – which you only have a one in 139,838,160 chance of winning.
Marketing apprentice Tayla’s row was 5, 13, 24, 45, 49, with Lucky Stars 6 and 11 and the winning numbers were 4, 12, 25, 46, 48, 7 and 12.
She told The Sun: “I’m just gutted. It’s a long shot to win the lottery anyway but to be so close is heart-breaking.
“At first I just saw I hadn’t won anything but then I went through and compared them side by side and that’s when I realised that every single number I had was just one away from the winning ones.
“That sort of money would be life changing and I started to think about what I would have done with it all.
“The first thing I would do is a holiday somewhere hot. We have always wanted to go to the Maldives and stay in one of those villas on the ocean.
“Then I would buy a car – I really want an Audi A1 so that’s one of the first things I would buy.”
Nobody won the jackpot on Friday so the huge sum rolled over to Tuesday night's draw where the £180mil prize pot could make a lucky punter richer than Adele.
'LIFE-CHANGING'
Tayla lives with her three older sisters and her mum in south east London, and said she would also buy a house for each of her siblings and her mum if she had pocketed the £178mil.
She started her apprenticeship straight after leaving school just over six months ago but told The Sun she would leave her job if she won millions and invest money in helping to solve London’s homeless problem.
Tayla has never won anything on the lottery before but one of her other two rows for Friday night’s draw matched two numbers – meaning she won back £2.80 from the £7.50 she had spent on the three tickets.
The odds of Tayla’s numbers being just one digit away from each winning ball is one in 1,092,486 according to Dr Marton Balazs, Associate Professor in Probability at Bristol University.
Dr Balazs said: “It is larger than the 1:139,838,160 chance for the jackpot but still very small.
“You can work it out by figuring out that there are two numbers either side of Tayla’s numbers which could be drawn to make it so close - for example when she picked 05 the drawn number could be 04 or 06.
“With the lottery, the probability of any event can be worked out by dividing the number of successful outcomes by the total number of outcomes.
“There are seven balls where the digit needs to be just one away from Tayla’s, so 2^7 (128) divided by the total number of outcomes for the Euromillions draw (139,838,160) will give you a one in 1,092,486 chance of Tayla’s numbers being agonisingly close to the real outcome.”
Tayla and her older sister Lauren, 24, decided to try their luck with the Euromillions on Friday afternoon after entering the previous two Euromillions draws with no success.
They have only started playing in the past few weeks and Tayla tops up her online account before buying tickets for £2.50 through the National Lottery website.
She said: “Me and my sister have really got into checking the lottery numbers during lockdown as something to do and we both bought tickets to the Euromillions on Friday night.
“I got three tickets and I picked two rows of numbers then also did a lucky dip. This is the third time I have entered it.
“My second row matched two numbers so I got £2.80 back which is better than nothing.
“I can laugh about it now but at the time there was no laughing. I was flipping between tabs on my phone at 9pm just after the results came out trying to make sure I was reading it right.
“I think I have to keep entering the draw. There has to be some luck in there somewhere.”
No one matched all seven numbers for the February 19 draw but four lucky UK winners main the five main numbers and one Lucky Star meaning they each won £123,284.80.
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The biggest ever UK jackpot of £170mil was scooped by an anonymous Brit in 2019.
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Andy Carter, Camelot’s senior winners’ advisor, said: “With The National Lottery having made over 5,900 millionaires, I meet players all the time who have not only come close, but actually matched all the lucky numbers they need to bank a life-changing win.
“All I can say is keep trying and it could be your door that I come knocking on next!”
