Couple who 'won over $200 million lottery jackpot' heartbroken after being told they couldn't collect money

An unlucky couple was left crushed after finding out that their numbers for the £182 million ($216 million) jackpot on the EuroMillions were not eligible. Rachel Kennedy and Liam McCrohan, who were 1

An unlucky couple was left crushed after finding out that their numbers for the £182 million ($216 million) jackpot on the EuroMillions were not eligible.

Rachel Kennedy and Liam McCrohan, who were 19 and 21 at the time, had all the winning numbers to bag the eye-watering amount of money and become one of the UK's biggest-ever lottery winners.

Rachel spoke to The Sun at the time and said: "I went on the app and it said 'Winning Match' and I thought 'Oh my God, I’ve won.' So I called my boyfriend Liam and my mum into the room and they couldn't believe it either."

The pair couldn't believe their fortune and instantly began to imagine what they could purchase with their millions such as their dream mansion and luxury cars.

Rachel told the publication that she had played the same numbers - 6, 12, 22, 29, 33, 6, and 11 - for five weeks in a row before they all appeared in the draw.

Her lottery account was set to automatically purchase the numbers repeatedly, but unfortunately, her payment did not go through for her ticket on a crucial night.

 

"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,'" she explained. "I was on top of the world when I thought I had won but when I found out I hadn’t, Liam was actually more upset than I was."

Her boyfriend Liam was understandably also left "heartbroken" by the outcome and admitted that he had already started working out what he would spend the cash on.

"She was quite relaxed about it but I had kind of spent it in my head already," he said. "I was absolutely heartbroken when we heard the man on the phone say we hadn’t actually bought the ticket."

"I was already picturing our dream house and the dream car, I think I was getting a bit carried away to be fair," he continued. "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," Liam added.

He had also shared his disappointment on Twitter, writing: "When your Mrs decides not to play the EuroMillions... and all 7 of her usual numbers come up."

 

The couple's plight resembles a recent story about how a court in the United Kingdom will decide whether a lottery winner will be awarded $1.2 million or $12 after a technical blunder.

Joan Parker-Grennan from Boston, Lincolnshire believes that she has rightfully won a cash sum of $1.2 million (£1 million) from Camelot, saying the National Lottery operator should pay up.

However, Camelot is denying the claim stating that they only owe the winner $12 (£10) so the case has been left in the hands of Sir Robert Maurice Jay, better known by Judge Justice Jay.

 

During a High Court hearing in London last month, Judge Jay heard that Parker-Grennan had played online after purchasing an Instant Win Game ticket worth $6 (£5) on August 25, 2015.

According to the Independent, the game's rules are as follows; if a number in the "your numbers" section of the screen matched one in the winning numbers section, the two matching numbers would turn white, revealing that the player had won the prize "designated by those matching numbers" which in this case, is causing the dispute.

Camelot declared that "at the point" that Parker-Grennan bought her ticket, its computer system predetermined her prize to be $12. However, the judge was then told that there had been a "technical issue" which could result in "different graphical animation" being displayed on some players’ screens which ultimately led to the misunderstanding.

 

While Parker-Grennan lost the latest stage of her High Court battle in April, it has not yet been decided whether she will walk away with a life-changing sum or pocket change.