This is the story of Rachel Kennedy and Liam McCrohan, who won the prize of a lifetime, scooping up the EuroMillions £182 million ($244.69 million) award, but never saw the money due to a faulty payment transaction in their own account.
Couple Wins Millions, but Failed Ticket Payment Leaves Them in Disbelief
Kenedy and McCrohan technically “won” the jackpot with 6, 12, 22, 29, 33, 6, and 11, playing the same numbers for five weeks in a row when good fortune struck. However, there was one significant snag.
Kennedy played the same numbers every week, and to ease things along, she had also set up her lottery app to automatically purchase an entry into each subsequent draw, which it did without a fault.
However, the winning ticket was never actually paid for, as Kennedy’s account had insufficient funds, and the payment actually failed to go through to the lottery, meaning that although the couple were technically a winner, they had never paid the ticket price and were thus never eligible to participate in the lottery.
Even more devastating for the couple, when Kennedy checked her account, it was confirmed that the numbers were the winning match, with the prize money dangled on the screen, but the failed transaction meant that she could never lay claim to the jackpot.
“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,” Kennedy said, and shared that her boyfriend was even more devastated than she was.
Another Huge Jackpot Miss in the Most Incredible Way!
This story is reminiscent of another anecdotal would-be lottery win from Britain. One Tayla Octave couldn’t believe how close she came to winning the jackpot and, at the same time, how far from it she was.
The £178-million EuroMillions prize eluded her in the cheekiest way possible, with Octave picking 5, 13, 24, 45, 49, 6, and 11, but the winning numbers actually ended up just a digit off at 4, 12, 25, 46, 48, 7, 12!
As to Kennedy and McCrohan, the couple keeps on playing the lottery, but they have changed their original numbers as they now believe them to be unlucky. At the same time, across the pond, a winning Powerball ticket worth $1.8 billion is still missing.