Mum Finds Million Pound Lottery Ticket in Her Handbag

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A mother of three is celebrating after finding a lottery ticket worth a cool £1 million in her handbag. Shaheen Akhtar, who lives in Dundee, had bought the ticket for the Lotto draw on Wednesday 12 April and didn’t think about it again until several weeks later, when she discovered it lurking in the bottom of her handbag. Then, when she checked her numbers, she was astounded to learn that her ticket had matched the Lotto Millionaire Raffle code.

Shaheen quickly took the ticket to the shop where she had bought it so that it could be double-checked on their system. The shopkeeper scanned the barcode and confirmed that it was a winner, and told her that she should call the lottery operator straight away to make her claim.

The Dundee mum had won a few Lucky Dip entries previously, which is the smallest prize that can be won in the Lotto game, as well as an award of £250 around 18 months ago, but never anything approaching the £1 million that she landed in mid-April. Shaheen and her husband are now planning to buy a new home for their family, do some shopping and enjoy a dream holiday in Dubai.

We are glad that this story had a happy ending, but it could easily have ended quite differently. Lottery prizes in the UK need to be claimed within 180 days of the winning draw, so if Shaheen hadn’t noticed her ticket for a while longer, she could potentially have missed out on a life-changing prize of £1 million, and the money would have been added to the fund for Good Causes instead.

As always, we urge players everywhere to check their tickets as soon as possible after each and every draw so that they can make any prize claim required and minimise the risk of overlooking a big win. Of course, one very simple way of ensuring that you don’t miss out on a big win is by playing online. When you play lottery games online, your entries are checked automatically, and you would be notified by email if and when your numbers come up. 

Players who already have previously purchased tickets hidden away in purses, wallets or coat pockets might want to take a look at our Unclaimed Prizes page, because there are currently more than a dozen prizes of £1 million waiting to be claimed by their rightful owners, and a couple of them expire this month. Don’t forget that you can also check your tickets by using the free Lottery Results Checkers.

For those of you who haven’t already won big, the next opportunity to do so is this Friday, when EuroMillions will offer a jackpot worth an estimated £25 million. Choose your numbers today and remember to make your claim quickly if they win you a fortune! Good luck!