In the UK's National Lottery, a guy who matched all six numbers naturally started daydreaming about how he was going to spend the £11 million (US$14.2 million) jackpot.

49-year-old Wigan, England, father Mark Fletcher beat odds of 41 million to one in his accurate forecast of the June 29 draw's numbers. The only issue was that he hadn't really purchased a ticket, which he was unaware of. It's said that you have to be in it to win, and Fletcher was definitely not.

Fletcher checked the numbers on the app and saw that there was a "winning match," so he called the Lottery.

He was looking at the results on the Lottery app's results checker, not a real winning ticket, the woman on the phone informed him.

Players can choose a set of numbers to save on their account as "my numbers" while utilizing the program. They can then compare them to any earlier draw by using the outcomes checker.

However, you must purchase a ticket if you hope to win the lottery. A lottery representative attested to the fact that Fletcher had never purchased a ticket through the app for any prior draw in addition to not having purchased one for the draw scheduled for June 29.

Lottery "Cruelty"

That clarified things, then. However, Fletcher seemed unsure of what had transpired in an interview with Wigan Today, his local newspaper.

“I was on the phone for 45 minutes and the woman was adamant I wasn’t a winner,” he complained. “Then I asked why it was telling me I’d won and if there was a fault with the app, and they denied that also.

"… She kept saying, ‘you haven’t bought that ticket, have you, Mark?’” an experience Fletcher described as akin to “being put under a lie-detector.”

“When people play the Lotto, they think it’s a trustworthy service but I’m doubting that now,” he confided. “They’ve not shown any empathy towards me.”

Fletcher claimed that he has been having nightmares about "what ifs" ever since the "cruel" incident.

£35 million error

He is not the only British lottery player whose hopes were shattered after thinking they had hit the big one. The numbers Edwina and David Nylan of Fleetwood, England, picked in a £35 million (US$45 million) jackpot draw in 2015 also left them wondering "what ifs." They'd also forgotten to purchase a ticket.

Every week, the couple used the same numbers to purchase tickets using their online account; but, on this specific occasion, the purchase was unsuccessful since their account balance was only 60p.

That week, pictures of the Nylans looking appropriately dejected appeared in an article published by the British tabloid The Sun.