Mystery millionaire in Wakefield as search launched for Lotto winner

The search is on for a mystery millionaire in Wakefield as the top £1m Lotto prize goes unclaimed.

The winner is believed to have purchased their winning Lotto ticket in the city before the draw on Wednesday (August 5). Yet as the deadline inches nearer to claim the winnings, the National Lottery is urging players to search their pockets, double check their lottery tickets and think back to a recent sunny day.

If no-one comes forward to claim the prize before the deadline, the money as well as all the interest it has generated will be put back into helping National Lottery fund projects across the country, The Mirror reports. The lucky winner has until midnight on February 1, 2027, to claim the jackpot.

Andy Carter, Senior Winners’ Advisor at Allwyn, operator of The National Lottery said: “We’re urging anyone who may have bought a ticket in the City of Wakefield for the Lotto draw on Wednesday 5 August to check their tickets.

“Think back to the weeks leading up to the draw. It was another hot one – perhaps you went out for cooling drinks or an ice lolly and took a chance on a Lotto Lucky Dip?

“Did you stash your ticket in some shorts pocket or a picnic bag? Tell your friends, ask your family, check in with colleagues, someone out there is sitting on a life-changing £1M and doesn’t even know it. It could be you.”

The winning ticket matched all five main numbers plus the Bonus Ball in Round 2, winning the seven-figure top prize.

The winning numbers were 12, 14, 16, 22, 29, 59 and the Bonus Ball was 58.

The warning comes as the largest UK unclaimed win was a Euro millions prize of a staggering £63.8m in June 2012 in the Stevenage/Hitchin area. The lottery team at the time visited the area with two giant billboards on trucks, reading: “Are you the lucky £63.8 million winner?”

Yet no one came forward within the 180-day deadline, meaning it went back into funding good causes.

The same happened to another unclaimed £10.6m jackpot earlier this year.

“The majority of prizes that would go unclaimed would be the smaller tier prizes. It’s very unusual for a prize of this size to go unclaimed,” Allwyn, operator of The National Lottery, told the Press Association at the time.

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