A lucky couple who won a nine-figure lottery prize were dismayed to discover they couldn’t collect their winnings due to a heartbreaking mistake.
Rachel Kennedy, 19, and Liam McCrohan, 21, spent five weeks entering the same numbers into the EuroMillions draw with hopes of winning a titanic £182 million jackpot.
Every week, the Hertfordshire pair entered 6, 12, 22, 29, 33, 6 and 11, and miraculously, their numbers were drawn in February 2021.
Each entry came automatically from Miss Kennedy’s account, meaning on the day their numbers appeared, they believed they had already bought the winning ticket.
But they were devastated to discover this was not the case when they went to claim their monster winnings.
Brighton University business student Miss Kennedy discovered she didn’t have the correct funds to purchase the ticket that week.
Speaking to The Sun, she said she was ecstatic when the lotto app informed her she had picked the “winning numbers”, and she called her mum and boyfriend.
The two wouldn’t believe her, however, so she decided to call and double-check the notification.
Miss Kennedy said: “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’.”
“I called the number thinking that I had won £182 million, 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’.”
While she was the one who first received the news, her boyfriend, Mr McCrohan was more upset, as he confessed to getting “carried away” after thinking about how they would spend the money.
He said: “I was already picturing our dream house and the dream car, I think I was getting a bit carried away to be fair.”
“On the app, it really made it look like we had won because it comes up in orange, and it says winning match.
“When you looked at it and it was her usual numbers it just really looked like she had won and I got a bit carried away.”
The couple’s unlucky experience nearly went viral at the time, as, when Mr McCrohan posted the results on X, then Twitter, to his 120 followers, the post received over 31,000 likes.
