Everyone dreams of the amazing feeling of winning the lottery, right? A lot of us would immediately start spending it on the things we have always dreamed out, paying off loans ect., but one thing you need to remember is to actually cash it in!

It may sound obvious, but more people forget to cash it in than you can imagine. Not only do they forget to cash it in or have major problems when trying to do so. So, in this article we’re going to learn about these unfortunate lottery winners and how you can avoid becoming another tragic lottery winner story with the help of Lottoland!

6. South Carolina code error

On the 25th December 25, 2017, thousands of South Carolina Residents received the best Christmas gift they could’ve ever wished for – they won the lottery. Of course, the people buying these winning tickets didn’t realize they were one of thousands of other winners. It’s normal to sometimes have a few other winners, but thousands of winners smells a bit fishy.

Two days later, the South Carolina Education Lottery made a statement that ruined everyone’s Christmas dreams. According to Lottery provider, the winning tickets resulted from a coding error.

The people responsible were Intralot – the lottery’s system supplier at the time. Obviously, they were very quickly fired after this huge mistake and replaced by IGT, who now manages the lottery’s computer systems. But what happened to the winners? Sadly, they were told that their ticket were all invalid, thanks to the incorrect code in the system. Not a good Christmas for everyone involved.

Winners further tried to push their luck but trying to carry out a lawsuit. However, it never came to anything – the lottery wouldn’t budge, and their hopes of a win vanished. 

5. A pair of English criminals

In April 2019, Mark Goodram was released from prison. He decided to celebrate by meeting up with his friends and fellow criminal, Jon-Ross Watson. The pair figured it was a lucky day from Goodram, so they went out to buy a scratch-off lottery ticket. However, there was one flaw in their mastermind plan – they had no cash or bank card. So, what was their answer to this issue? Yep, they stole someone’s debit card and used it to buy the lottery ticket.

It really was their lucky day as they actually won. The prize was £4 million. It would’ve been an incredible win they hadn’t made one huge mistake. When the UK National Lottery called them to ask where to send their winnings, the men said they didn’t have a bank account for the deposit. Rookie criminal mistake!

You obviously cannot have a debit card without a bank account. This set off some red flags at the lottery, and they finally worked out the debit card they used to purchase the ticket wasn’t theirs. While the lottery was investigating, the two thieves were out on the town on a four-day-long spending spree. They were in and out of expensive bars and nightclubs, living it large and spending their non-existent windfall.

The lottery refused to pay them. Of course, a lengthy batter followed as the two criminals tried to claim the prize anyway. At one point, they tried to convince everyone that they had browed the debit card from their friend john. It wasn’t long till before everyone realised John, in fact, was a made person as they had no contact information from this mysterious John.  

The prize was put on hold while the legal battle was raging, so nobody else could win it either.

4. Illinois drowned in debt

In 2015, the state of Illinois had a couple of budgeting problems, and they couldn’t pay out jackpot wins anymore. So, one by one, Illinois residents won jackpots. But, when they checked up on their winnings, they were told that no prize over $600 was being paid out anymore. And this wasn’t the first time.

A few months earlier, jackpot winners who were expecting to be handed a giant check were instead receiving IOU’s, documents that stated that Illinois had a debt to be paid to the person who received it. But these kinds of problems usually get worse instead of better. All those IOU’s added up to an incredible debt – soon, it was a $120 billion deficit. It got so bad that they had to stop selling Powerball and Mega Millions tickets completely.

On top of that, angry winners were also suing the state for not paying. Luckily for everyone, by 2017, the state had regained of their funds, and they actually did start paying out the winners! Hopefully, everyone received all the money they were owed.

3. $1 Million in the bin… literally

Checking your numbers can be super exciting, especially when you have won. The two roommates from this story, Erick and Salvatore, decided to check their Powerball numbers together. Erick read the numbers out loud while Salvatore checked the ticket. When the numbers Erick read out didn’t match the ones of the ticket in Salvatores hand, he did what any of us would do – he crumpled up the ticket and threw it in the trash feeling defeated. However, that turned out to be one of his biggest mistakes.

Erick was reading the numbers off the lottery website thinking he couldn’t go wrong. But the website hadn’t been updated yet. The numbers he had in front of him were from the previous draw. Everyone’s worst nightmare – if he'd just checked the website a few minutes later, he would’ve seen that they did in fact win the lottery. They’d actually won $1 million. By the time they realized their mistake, the garbage men had already come and carried off the $1 million ticket in their truck.

They got a lawyer involved and even traced the ticket all the way to a landfill in Ontario before nearly getting a police dog to try and sniff it out. Tragically, it was never found, and even though they could prove they had bought the winning number tickets, they couldn’t claim the prize without that winning ticket that was rotting away in the landfill. May we all learn from this gut renching mistake.

2. Six months late

Back in 2001, a British couple won £3 million in the UK lottery. However, their big moment didn’t go the way they would’ve hoped. They never checked their ticket and only realised they’d won 6 months later when the lottery sent out an appeal for the winners to come forward. As they betted on the same numbers every week, they knew they were the ones the lottery was looking for. They were so excited right up until the moment that they realised they couldn’t find their ticket. That was just the start of the emotional rollercoaster for this couple. They set out to access computer records in the hopes that it would prove they had purchased a ticket with the winning numbers. And, incredibly, they found proof!

But there was a catch. The lottery state that lost tickets must be reported within 30 days, otherwise they’re no longer valid. Even with proof, the couple still couldn’t claim the prize without the ticket. The lottery deliberated for a full 45 days while Martyn and Kay anxiously waited for news.

Eventually, they were told they were not going to receive the prize. They set up a campaign for help and even Richard Branson stepped forward to offer support but the lottery wouldn’t change their mind. Sadly, all the stress eventually ended in their divorce.

Payment glitch

This young couple from England received a pretty harsh life lesson when they narrowly missed a jackpot in May 2022. Rachel was 19, and Liam was 21 when they hit the jackpot. They played the same numbers each week via an online lottery platform. Cleverly, they’d set up their profile so it would automatically buy a ticket with their numbers every week.

One week, they checked the winning numbers on the lottery website and couldn’t believe what they saw. All their numbers matched for a winning jackpot of £182 million! Tragically, the payment hadn’t gone through when the system automatically bought the ticket.

They were never notified that the purchase had failed, which is the annoying part as it was not their fault and they could have fixed the problem if they had known. Instead, Rachel called up the lottery only to be told that, even though she had the right numbers, she had no ticket. And obviously, no ticket means no win. The couple said they were absolutely heartbroken when they found out as I think we all would be too.

Ensure your winnings with Lottoland

Firstly, in order to collect your winnings, you need to bet on the lottery which brings us to the important question - who is Lottoland? Lottoland offers you the chance to bet on the outcome of the world’s biggest lotteries. Select the draw, choose your numbers and submit your line.
Betting with Lottoland, you win the amount that you would have won if the official prize fund was shared between you and any official lottery winners.
For all intents and purposes you will have the same experience as if you had played the official draw. The difference is that we take your bet and we pay you if you win.

Is the pay-out guaranteed? Yes!

All your winnings are guaranteed to be paid out at Lottoland! This is because all bets are placed on your behalf with EU Lottoland Limited, licensed by the Government of Gibraltar and regulated by the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner and the Gambling Commission for Great Britain. So, need to stress!

Lottoland has had a number of big jackpot winners and have a very simple process for paying out big wins. When you win the lottery, the first thing Lottoland does is give you a courtesy call to give you the good news. You may want to be sat down for that piece of news! During that phone call, Lottoland verified your account (if this hasn’t been done already), then they make arrangements to pay your winnings in full to your designated bank account.
In much the same way as the official lottery provider would, Lottoland’s PR team may be in touch to help you celebrate this hugely special day. They will always ensure full respect to any request to remain anonymous. However, if you’d rather not be anonymous, Lottoland can arrange something extra special to help you commemorate the day you became a multimillionaire.

So, lets all learn a lesson from all those unfortunate lottery winners and bet with Lottoland in order to avoid being next on the list of a tragic story. Goodluck and bet safely!