Retired accountant Howard Price* was overjoyed when he matched five numbers on one of his lottery tickets after almost 30 years of playing.
The 78-year-old from Farnborough, Hampshire, went to his local Morrisons supermarket to check his tickets and the cashier told him he had won a prize.
“I loved it,” says Howard, a grandfather of four. “My wife Hilda* and I have won raffles before, but nothing of this size.”
Howard was told to call the National Lottery, which confirmed he had won £1,750 in the April 19 draw.
However, their enthusiasm faded as days turned into weeks with no sign of a check arriving.
It’s been more than two months since Howard made the claim, but the money still hasn’t reached his bank account.
Daniel Wright, 81, from Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, won £764.30 in the EuroMillions draw two weeks ago, but has yet to receive a penny.
Howard is far from alone.
Other winning ticket holders have contacted Money Mail and are upset that Lottery operator Allwyn is keeping their winnings, for up to nine weeks. The delays affect those who bought tickets at retailers, not those who bought online.
Allwyn took over Camelot National Lottery in February this year and has introduced sweeping changes.
The operator, which is regulated by the Gambling Commission, is in charge of running the Lottery, including attracting players, working on the technology behind the games and improving the profitability of funded projects.
Under Camelot, lucky players who won a prize of up to £50,000 could visit their local post office to confirm a ticket purchased from a retailer and collect their winnings.
But the Post Office decided to let its contract with the National Lottery expire at the end of January this year, so it has been unable to pay out Lottery prizes between £500.01 and £50,000.
Some Post Office branches that sell lottery tickets may pay out prizes of up to £500, but this is at your discretion. Correos has not revealed why it decided to let its contract expire.
Allwyn is now asking players to fill out an online form to start their claim for winnings between £500.01 and £50,000. He says winners who are unable to complete an online form can contact their customer service team on 0333 234 50 50 for help.
Players must provide their name, address, email address, ticket number and upload images of the ticket on a prize claim form.
The information is then reviewed and the time this takes will vary. It may depend on factors such as what additional information the player needs or when Allwyn actually receives the physical ticket or scratch card. Players may also be asked to post their ticket.
The process for claiming prizes won online, and not through a ticket or scratch card purchased at a retailer, is not affected by the delays.
Finally, almost a month after filing his claim, Howard received an email with instructions on how to post his winning ticket to the Lottery with a prepaid tracking label. The ticket was delivered successfully.
In the following weeks he called five times to check on the progress of his earnings. On three separate occasions he was told that the £1,750 would be with him by the middle of the following week. The money never arrived.
“Surely a month should be enough time to pay the winners,” he says. “This delay has taken away the pleasure of winning.”
Last week, two months after Howard made the claim, the operator pointed out a problem: that both Howard and his wife Hilda had signed the back of the lottery ticket even though it was Howard who was making the claim. This caused further delays in receiving the money from him, as Howard had to confirm that it was his ticket and that he claimed the prize.
He says, “Someone should have figured this out weeks ago, instead of at the time the check was issued.” If you had told me that weeks ago, we would have solved it.
Allwyn does not benefit from any interest accrued on prizes not yet paid to players. The funds are held in a trust account and any interest can be used to pay National Lottery costs, with any surplus going towards Lottery-funded projects.
But winners are missing out on valuable interest they could earn in a top-tier savings account. Howard’s Lottery jackpot would have earned him £14.58 in a savings account paying 5 per cent over the past two months, a small but welcome boost to his healthy earnings.
With the Bank of England set to cut the base rate to 3 per cent by the end of 2025, according to research firm Capital Economics, savers are locking into higher-paying savings accounts before rates start to fall in chopped later this year.
This is something Mick Miller wants to do. The 60-year-old from Basildon, Essex, has been waiting for his cash prize for more than a month.
“They’re holding on to our money,” he says.
‘It’s not about earning interest on our own bank accounts. I won £1,300 a few years ago and collected the winnings from my local post office. I expected this victory to be just as smooth, but this experience has been quite different.”
Allwyn, owner of the National Lottery, is asking players to fill out an online form to start their claim for winnings between £500.01 and £50,000
Mick won £800 in the HotPicks draw and made a claim on 24 May. They told him they would send him some forms, but they didn’t arrive until Monday, a month after he made the claim.
He says: “I would have used the money for bills and some purchases.”
His pot would have risen by £3.33 in a month in a savings account paying 5 per cent interest.
Mick, a former truck driver, is now wary of potential future lottery wins. ‘I’m not very excited about it. If I have to wait two months to get some money, it’s ridiculous.’
It’s a sentiment echoed in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, by Daniel Wright, an 81-year-old former lorry driver. He was ecstatic to learn that he had won £764.30 in the EuroMillions draw two weeks ago.
He checked the numbers on June 12, the day after the drawing, and claimed the money online, with photos of the lucky ticket.
The retired truck driver had been participating for 15 years and was looking forward to enjoying the fruits of his greatest victory. But it’s been two weeks and Daniel still hasn’t received a cent of his earnings.
‘I think it’s disgusting. You buy the ticket in good faith and trust and I have been entering for 15 years,” he says. ‘I called them five times and sent them emails. They keep saying they are checking it and have asked me to send them more photos of the winning ticket,” says Daniel.
‘I’m not a rich person, so that amount of money could be useful and I was going to put it in the bank.
“I remember the heyday of football pools, when money was paid out in a couple of days and I expected a similar deal with this lottery prize.”
An Allwyn spokesperson says: “We are very sorry for the concerns raised by these players and we will be contacting them directly.” This is a revised claims process we had to introduce earlier this year following the Post Office’s decision to no longer pay out National Lottery retail prizes between £500.01 and £50,000.
‘As a result, we have experienced a higher volume of players contacting us and some initial delays in players receiving their rewards.
‘After introducing a number of measures, such as increasing the number of colleagues to help with claims, we have reduced waiting times for the majority of players and continue to work on new ways to help improve the claims process further. “We would like to assure all those affected that they will receive their prize.”
*Names have been changed
- Have you waited weeks to receive your Lottery winnings? Email L.evans@dailymail.co.uk
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them, we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.
