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Tale of the lost lottery ticket

Last Updated: Tuesday 3rd July 2018, 12:27

Often we hear about unclaimed lottery prizes, players begged to step forward before the time runs out. But imagine hearing the numbers from the draw and finding they are your regular numbers, worse you can’t find the lottery ticket and it’s the biggest unclaimed lottery prize of all time. That’s what happened to Martyn Tott and his wife Kay in 2001 and now Mr Tott has written a book about his experience.

The couple sat down on a normal evening and watched a Camelot appeal for an unclaimed lottery prize. It turned out the numbers were the same set of numbers the couple had played since the start of the lottery. Then the hunt began for the lottery ticket yet despite a frantic search that involved lifting floorboards they discovered the ticket was lost forever.

The couple immediately called the National Lottery and went through the procedure to attempt to claim the lottery win but were eventually told they wouldn’t be able to claim the win. The National Lottery maintained they would be acting outside the rules to pay out the lost lottery ticket and the win was lost forever.

You can read the full story in My Tott’s new book, ‘Six Magic Numbers’, about how they as a couple came to terms with the loss of the money, how the event affected them and probably some good advice on keeping lottery tickets safe.

We at National-Lottery.com always recommend buying lottery tickets online, and with stories such as this one appearing, it’s even more reason to not have paper lottery tickets. If you do buy lottery tickets from the shop, keep them safe!

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