A mum is facing a nightmare 30-day wait to see if she can claim £12m on the lottery — and there's two other Brits who know exactly what that wait feels like after they lost their ticket11:39, 09 Jul 2026Updated 07:37, 10 Jul 2026A mum faces a tortuous 30-day wait to discover if she will be £12million richer — after a shopkeeper binned her ticket.‌Kath Main, 46, recently read online that the June 6 jackpot went unclaimed, before realising the winning numbers were a match.‌However, she claims her mum initially had taken the ticket to a Londis in South Wales where she was told it was not a winner, before it was binned by the shop owner.‌The store owner has since said the machine could have been playing up, and an investigation is underway.Kath now faces a 30-day wait to discover if National Lottery operator Allwyn will award her the money she feels she won, and she said she now feels “sick all the time”.While she waits, she may be looking at past examples. That leads us on to 'Britain’s unluckiest couple', who once found themselves in a similar situation which led to a devastating outcome.‌Martyn and Kay TottMartyn and Kay, from Hertfordshire, bought a winning National Lottery ticket worth a life-changing £3,011,065 in 2001.However, after the initial elation of realising their numbers matched, they then went scouring for the physical ticket.‌And with the National Lottery draw being made six months prior, the horror of the situation soon kicked in when they realised it was lost.They played the same numbers every week, so they were convinced they had won and confirmed with their local shop that they bought the ticket before trying to claim their fortune from Lottery organiser Camelot.However, they were unaware of a key rule, which was that lost tickets must be reported within 30 days, meaning they were too late.‌They waited 45 days for an official answer, and the bad news devastated them.At the time, Sir Richard Branson and even Tony Blair urged the lottery to award the couple with the money, after it became a huge news story.‌However, despite trying for five years to get the cash in court, it wasn’t to be for Martyn and Kay.Speaking about the impact, Martin, who would have been 33 when the drama unfolded, told the Mail on Sunday: “Having that money taken away was torture.“For a long time I lost sight of who I was and what I believed in. But I can honestly say I’m glad I didn’t get the £3million now.‌“There is no guarantee it would have brought me happiness.”The stress of the situation caused a strain on their relationship too and there was no way back.Martyn said: “We’d only known each other for two years and the Lottery ordeal quickly highlighted our differences.‌“All we did was bicker. Sadly, both of us agreed we should split and Kay moved out.”After Kay moved out, Martyn ended up quitting his job and he later wrote a novel called Six Magic Numbers which was inspired by the situation that caused havoc in his life.‌He turned to religion and in 2003 met American woman Tanya. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she introduced him to a church led by a “self-appointed Apostle”.However, after realising members had to give 10% of their income to the leader, he returned to the UK.He brought the case against Camelot to the High Court in 2007 but was told he would have to pay £400,000 in Camelot’s legal fees if he lost.Article continues belowThen, after his wealthy sponsor Jonathan Bunn pulled out, the realisation hit that he was never seeing the money.His book came out two years later.