National Lottery’s message to teen who missed out on £182m as financial institution had £2.50 in

The National Lottery chimed in after a student’s dreams were dashed when she missed out on a £182m jackpot due to a failed payment.

Rachel Kennedy, then a business student at Brighton University, had her world turned upside down when she matched all seven EuroMillions numbers in February 2021. Tragically for Rachel and her beau Liam McCrohan, the ticket purchase didn’t go through because her bank account was short of the £2.50 needed.

Camelot, the brains behind the state-franchised lottery since ’94, sent the Hertfordshire lovebirds a “good luck” wish for future gambles. A Camelot spokesperson piped up: “We’re aware of Rachel’s story and hope she gets in early to buy a ticket for the next big draw,” reports the Daily Star.

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The spokesperson also expressed the company’s fingers-crossed attitude for her future fluttering before the £20m Lotto jackpot found its winner. For five weeks, Rachel and Liam had been betting on their lucky digits 6, 12, 22, 29, 33, 6 and 11 which finally hit the jackpot on the February 26 draw.

Upon checking her National Lottery account, Rachel was greeted with a “winning match” alert. She spilled the beans to the Sun: “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’.”

Dialling the hotline, Rachel thought she’d bagged £182million. She continued: “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’.”

Feeling gutted, she said: “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.”

Liam chimed in with his side of the story: “[Rachel] was quite relaxed about it but I had kind of spent it in my head already. I was absolutely heartbroken when we heard the man on the phone say we hadn’t actually bought the ticket.”

He confessed to getting carried away by fantasies of riches: “I was already picturing our dream house and the dream car, I think I was getting a bit carried away to be fair.”

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