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Man Thought He Had Won £50K On Lottery, Turns Out It Was Three Lucky Dips

Man Thought He Had Won £50K On Lottery, Turns Out It Was Three Lucky Dips

He excitedly rang his friends and family to share his 'good news'

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

If you reckon you're having a bad day, then please spare a thought for this poor bloke who thought he'd won upwards of £50,000 on the National Lottery, only to find out he'd actually won three lucky dips worth six quid.

Dean Smethurst, 32, rang all his friends and family to share the news of his good fortune, until he found out the real prize he'd won.

Dean popped into Tesco to have his National Lottery card checked last week and was informed by the cashier that he'd won.

Woohoo!

Dean Smethurst thought he had won big, but it turned out he had only bagged himself three lucky dips.
SWNS

But then the supermarket worker told Dean that she wasn't able to hand over his prize and that he would have to contact Camelot.

Wanting to know what it meant, Dean went online and checked out Camelot's terms and conditions, where he found that anyone who had won £50,000 or more is instructed to call Camelot to arrange to collect their prize in person.

As you might well do, Dean assumed his luck was in and he'd won big.

He quickly told his friends and family about his 'win' and cracked open the bubbly to celebrate. However, his celebrations were a tad premature, because when Camelot's phone lines opened the next morning, he was informed he'd won three lucky dips, worth £2 each.

"I didn't sleep because I was so excited," Dean said.

"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.

"I spoke to the girl and gave her the serial number of the ticket.

"She inputted it and said: 'Well done, you've won... three lucky dips.'

"I asked her if she was sure, and then I asked to speak to a manager. I am absolutely gutted.

"I thought, 'This is it, it's for real, my numbers have come up.'

"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 turns out that the 'contact Camelot' message Dean was given was because he had checked his ticket on a Wednesday while another live draw he had a ticket for was already in progress.

Dean explained: "When I had purchased the ticket, I had bought one for both the Saturday and Wednesday draw.

His house is currently undergoing renovations and Dean was hoping to spend some cash on that.
SWNS

"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."

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."

Featured Image Credit: SWNS

Topics: uk news