A mother-of-two from South Wales faces an agonising wait to discover whether she has won a £12 million Lotto jackpot – after a shopkeeper threw her winning ticket in the bin.
Kath Main, 46, a rugby club treasurer, read in The Sun that the June 6 jackpot was unclaimed and realised the winning numbers matched the ones she has played for 20 years. Her mother had taken the ticket to be checked at a Londis in Abercynon, where staff said it was not a winner.
“Mum's £12m Lotto ticket thrown in bin by shopkeeper after machine failed to show win.”
“I just feel sick all the time, it’s the not knowing and waiting,” said Kath.
She recalled the moment she discovered her luck. “I saw there was an unclaimed lottery ticket and checked the numbers and realised they were mine. I rang my mother and said, ‘You did put the lottery on?’ and she said ‘Yeah’. I said, ‘Well we’ve won the lottery,’ and she said, ‘I checked and there was no winners’. I said ‘No, it’s a winner, we’ve won’. She said ‘How much?’ and I said, ‘£12million’. She said ‘It can’t be, the ticket’s in the bin’.”
Her mother, cafe owner Fiona, said the machine did not beep and the shop owner told her nothing had come up on the screen. “He told me, ‘There are no winners, do you want them back?’ And I said if there are no winners then put them in the bin,” Fiona said. “Kath told me off and said, ‘Why didn’t you keep them?’”
By the time Kath realised she was the winner, the bins had been emptied. She contacted National Lottery operator Allwyn with proof of purchase and doorbell footage from a hair salon showing her mother at the relevant time.
“I said to Allwyn, ‘If it didn’t beep, was it a fault on the machine?’ They said it was a possibility but it’s highly unlikely,” Kath said.
The Londis has no CCTV because it is being renovated. Owner Karan Kumar said: “The machine could have been playing up. Now they are doing an investigation. It would be amazing if she won.”
Lottery play has been suspended in the shop while the investigation is carried out, with the machine and scratchcards removed. Allwyn will take up to 30 days to decide if Kath has won.
“I’m the unluckiest person to win the lottery because I don’t have the money,” she said. “I’m trying not to think about what I’d do with the money in case I don’t get it.” But she admitted she would love to go to New Zealand.