It's a dream most of us have - winning the lottery and living the life of Riley.
But what happens if your numbers actually come up and you win a tidy sum? Well, there are certain procedures to go through before you can get your hands on your cash.
First of all, the National Lottery team has to carry out rigorous checks to confirm you've actually won a prize. Anita Perez, who has worked with the customer service team at The National Lottery for 16 years, has had the pleasure of informing numerous people they had become millionaires.
Read More: Teenager 'wins' £182million EuroMillions jackpot only to find out £2.50 ticket wasn't paid for
Speaking to The Mirror, she explained: "The main job is taking in inbound calls from customers and players either to check our products and results or more importantly winners wanting to check a scratchcard or ticket thinking they've won thousands, millions or multi-millions.
"Every call we treat as a winning call, they've brought a product from us that wins money, so we check all the details in order to confirm the win and it's amazing when you can do that. You end up sitting up straighter a little bit, there's all this excitement."
And when it comes to reactions from the other end of the phone, she says the emotions vary - between screaming and jumping for joy to people breaking down sobbing in disbelief. However, Anita herself is not allowed to buy her own lottery tickets, as the job forbids her from doing so.
The expert went on to explain the stages that take place when someone calls claiming they have won the lottery, which have to be thorough to prevent any fraud. There is a lot of secrecy around the exact procedure for checking a winning ticket, however Anita said: "We cannot share certain aspects but rest assured, the process is incredibly rigorous to ensure no stone is left unturned when it comes to confirming someone is the legitimate ticketholder.
"In the initial stages, information around which shop the winning ticket was bought in and what day and time it was purchased etc. is sought from the ticketholder and cross-checked. If this information is correctly provided, the claim is further investigated and when all checks have been passed, the claim is validated and paid out.
"The most important thing for ease of validation is to be in possession of your ticket and the required validation information. For instance, if you paid by card in a retailer, this transaction would show under your bank statement."
If you bought a paper ticket in-person from a shop, Anita advises signing the back of it after purchase so you can confirm it is indeed yours if there's a winning claim to make. You may then want to put it away somewhere safe until after the draw, as the ticket itself is required to be shown during the validation stages.
As a general rule of thumb for safety they advise always using the National Lottery website or app when playing to "ensure you don't miss out on a huge prize". Anita went on to say that lottery winners have 180 days from the day of the draw to claim their prize if they believe they have a winning ticket and to do this they can call the National Lottery Line or send an email.
And even if you lose your ticket for some reason and aren't in possession of it, within 30 days of the draw there's still a chance you could win if you believe you have a genuine claim. All you have to do is make the claim in writing to Camelot. A full investigation will then be carried out and a prize may be paid at Camelot's discretion if no alternative valid claim has been submitted during the 180 days.
What happens if no one comes forward to claim a prize?
There are several steps the National Lottery might take to find the winner - but only if the ticket was purchased in an area with a population size of 75,000 or above. This is to protect the privacy of the ticket holder in case they wish to remain anonymous after their win.
Once the unclaimed prize area is identified and signed off a number of awareness-raising activities will take place to prompt the winner to check their ticket. This may include radio and television interviews, a fleet of ad vans hitting the local area or newspaper articles being printed.
Camelot is required to publicise all unclaimed prizes of £50,000 or above that were bought in retail by the 25th day after the draw. But in many cases, the first message about an unclaimed prize in an area will be issued around two weeks after the draw.
If the prize remains unclaimed three months after the draw, there will be a wave of more awareness activities, followed by further efforts one month and one week from the ticket's expiry.
Read Next:
