A MAN thought he’d had a big £50,000 lottery won and couldn’t sleep waiting to claim but was left gutted when he was told the truth.
Supermarket worker Dean Smethurst started making grand plans on what he was going to do with the winnings before anything was officially confirmed.
When he went to a Tesco supermarket in Farnworth, Lancashire, to have his lotto card checked, a message popped up on the till saying he had won.
After being told to call Camelot – as the apparent winnings were too large to be paid out upfront – he checked the terms and conditions where he discovered that the till’s message usually displayed when punters had won upwards of £50,000.
Thinking he was about to have a pile of cash sitting in his bank account he started making big plans on what he was going to do with all the money and told all his pals.
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 then had a nervous wait until the following day when Camelot’s phone lines opened and he could then claim his apparent winnings.
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.
“Then I decided to treat the family to a luxury holiday to Barbados.”
However, Dean’s big plans soon faded to dust 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.”
It was later revealed that because the Wednesday lottery draw was 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.”
The lottery is a game of luck and there are no tips or tricks that can guarantee you’ll take home a top prize.
Lotto by the National Lottery is a game where you pick six numbers from 1 to 59. You can play up to seven lines of numbers on each slip.
The game costs £2 to play per slip.
The odds of winning any prize on the Lotto are 1 in 9.3.
To bag the top prize, you need to have six matching balls. The odds of doing this and scooping the jackpot are currently 1 in 45,057,474.
The National Lottery has greatly expanded the number of games it runs since 1994, and the list now includes the original Lotto as well as EuroMillions, Set For Life and Thunderball.
Players can enter the lottery online via the National Lottery app or in-store across a huge number of retailers and supermarkets.
Crucially, you should always gamble responsibly and never bet more money than you can afford to lose.
If you’re worried about gambling and need to talk to someone you can contact organisations including the NHS, GamCare, and BeGambleAware.
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.”
Luckily for Dean, he was not in work on the devastating day so he could rest easy knowing he didn’t have to face his colleagues – and relied on his mum to whip him up some comfort food.
He said: “I just watched television and my mum made me some comfort food, which wasn’t much comfort.”
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 banked an incredible £182million – only to be told a payment issue meant they could not claim the prize.
