I nearly threw £53k lottery ticket in bin

A TEENAGER has revealed that he almost threw a £53,000 lottery prize in the bin – after being told to tidy his room. Ryan Kitching, 19, was about to dispose of a pile of tickets he found while cleaning his bedroom when he had a last-minute change of heart.

He later discovered one of the slips, for the February 8 draw, contained five numbers and the bonus ball.

The Penicuik teenager said: “I’m feeling brilliant – on top of the world. I was so close to throwing the tickets away but then I just had a gut feeling about it.

“I had just got back from the gym and my mum had been asking me to tidy my room. I found the tickets and I thought, ‘I’m taking my mum shopping anyway, I’ll get them checked – it will do no harm’.

“I had checked all of the other tickets, but I must have just forgotten about that one.”

Ryan bought the winning ticket from the Tesco in Edinburgh Road, Penicuik, where he works on the fish counter.

He got the surprise of his life after he left the tickets at the store’s kiosk while shopping with his mum.

“I wasn’t actually there when they got checked,” he admitted.

“My friend who works at the store shouted after me – he said ‘I think you’ve won big!’. He’d worked out that I had either won £1500 or £52,000, because I had the bonus ball, and I said, ‘that’s a big difference, which is it?’

“I had to phone up Camelot and the woman was asking me lots of questions and I just wanted her to get to the point. It just felt like it was taking an eternity.

“When I gave her the last number of the serial code, she said I had won £52,981. I just couldn’t believe it.”

Ryan’s luck did not end there, because as well as winning almost £53,000, he won £2.80 in the Euromillions draw.

Ryan has still not worked out what will use the money for, but said he planned to give his 16-year-old brother Sean money towards the deposit for a car when he turns 17 and is looking to treat parents Susan and Raymond, with whom he lives, to a holiday.

“My advice would be get your tickets checked as soon as you can,” he said.

“I’m definitely going to continue playing the lottery and I’m going to use those numbers from now on.

“The only number that let me down was number seven, and that’s supposed to be my lucky number.”