Retired Couple Leave £1 Million Lotto Ticket In Kitchen for a Week

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Checking your Lotto numbers might be one of the most important things you do on a Saturday evening, but Barry and Brenda Coupland, a retired couple from Louth, weren’t in any such rush, as they left a ticket worth £1 million on their kitchen counter for a whole week before checking it.

Winning Raffle Ticket

The Couplands bought a ticket for the Lotto draw on Saturday 14th July but, as they always do, didn’t check to see if it was a winner until Barry went to buy their tickets for the following week’s draws. Talking about the moment he found out about the win, he said: “I play two lines on Lotto every Wednesday and Saturday but I only get the tickets checked when I go to buy the following week’s tickets. This time when I handed my tickets over, the cashier told me that they couldn’t pay it out as we needed to ring Camelot.

“They said they could only pay up to £200 instore so I was rubbing my hands thinking I could surprise my wife with some flowers - £200 or £300 was going to be a real treat, it didn’t even cross my mind that it could be any more.”

Barry, a retired designer, hurried home to tell his wife, Brenda, about the win, and it was only then that they found out that they had won the top prize in the Lotto raffle. Brenda, a former school administrator, was the one to make the call to Camelot: “They asked if I'd like to sit down”, she said. “They told me we'd won £1m. It was unbelievable. I wish I could have captured the moment I found out we were millionaires. I think the colour must have drained from my face, I was just in absolute shock. I had one million pounds on my kitchen table for over a week and I didn’t even realise.”

Winners Vow to Continue Playing

Despite becoming millionaires, they couple have said that they will continue playing Lotto, and made sure they had their tickets for the draw following their win. They have started planning how they will spend the money, though. They already had plans in place for a garden party to celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary, and Brenda they still had “a lot of work to do” to get the house ready.

Talking about how they would spend the money, the couple said they would book a luxury holiday and spend some of their winnings on their children and grandchildren. Barry splashed out on a brand new Mercedes C200 soon after the win, and said: “I’ve been looking at new cars for some time but now I get to buy my dream one, something that would never have been possible if not for our win. We also have kids and grand-kids to think about. It’s fantastic that this win will change not only our lives but also all our family as well.”

The Couplands matched the winning Lotto Millionaire Raffle code AQUA 7414 3806 to win £1 million. All players who buy a ticket for Lotto are automatically entered into the supplementary raffle.