A teenager who thought she'd bagged a whopping £182million on the EuroMillions was left devastated to discover that she hadn't won anything because the payment for her ticket hadn't gone through.
Rachel Kennedy and her boyfriend Liam McCrohan, from Hertfordshire, had started planning their "dream" lives when Rachel got a notification to say that her seven lottery numbers were a "winning match" back in February 2021.
The couple, who were 19 and 21 at the time, had been playing the same numbers — 6, 12, 22, 29, 33, 6 and 11 — for five weeks in a row before they were finally drawn in the February 26 EuroMillions.
But their dreams were ripped away from them when they were informed that Rachel didn't have enough funds in her account to cover the £2.50 charge so the ticket wasn't purchased automatically prior to the draw as usual.
Despite this, University of Brighton student Rachel thought she'd secured the massive jackpot because a glitch had sent her a notification to tell her she was a winner.
She told The Sun: “I called my boyfriend Liam and my mum into the room and they couldn’t believe it either so I was like, ‘oh my God I need to call them’."
Rachel was initially "on top of the world" and said the heartbreaking news that they weren't going to be millionaires was even more devastating for Liam.
She added: “I called the number thinking that I had won £182million and they said ‘yeah you’ve got the right numbers but you didn’t have the funds in your account for the payment of the ticket so it didn’t actually go through’.
"I was on top of the world when I thought I had won but when I found out I hadn’t, Liam was actually more upset than I was.”
Liam had already been making big plans for their future, he said: “(Rachel) was quite relaxed about it but I had kind of spent it in my head already.
"I was absolutely heartbroken when we heard the man on the phone say we hadn’t actually bought the ticket. I was already picturing our dream house and the dream car, I think I was getting a bit carried away to be fair.”
Camelot, who have been the operators of the lottery since 1994, heard about Rachel's story and sent the couple a "good luck" message for future draws.
A spokesman for the company said: "We're aware of Rachel's story and hope she gets in early to buy a ticket for the next big draw."
They added the organisation wished her "the best of luck in future draws".
Rachel, now 21, has since stopped using the same numbers because she now believes they're actually unlucky.
She said: “I actually have two sets of numbers that I use. One of them is birthdays of family members and stuff, but the ones that were the winner were just random numbers that I had clicked one day and had been using ever since.
“We’re absolutely not going to keep using those numbers now, I’ve already changed them."
