A WINNING lottery ticket in Flintshire worth £58,000 that had gone unclaimed for months has now been claimed. We look the top 10 biggest winners and losers in lottery history.
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Largest unclaimed lottery prize in Britain
A winning ticket for £9.4 million was astonishingly never claimed in 2005, the largest unclaimed prize in lottery history.
A huge publicity campaign locally and nationally, even involving a town crier, failed to find the owner of the ticket which Camelot had traced to a shop in Doncaster.180 days passed, and the money went to good causes instead.
In April 2001 a Hertfordshire couple pleaded to Camelot to let them have a share of the jackpot after they lost a winning ticket which would have netted them £3m.
After not realizing they had won for weeks, they told Camelot they believed their numbers had come up during the 180-day deadline meaning they could claim the jackpot, but unfortunately they did not make a lost ticket claim, which according to rules must be made within 30 days of the draw.
Camelot mulled the plea over for six agonising weeks, then told the couple, "no."
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Family and money don't mix
An American named William "Bud" Post scooped $16.2 million in a Pennsylvania lottery in 1988.
His joy proved short lived as he was quickly sued by an ex-girlfriend who wanted a share of the cash, and if that wasnt bad enough his own brother hired a hitman to try and get an early inheritance payout.
The money finally dried up after he was harassed into family business venture which went to the wall, and within a year Bud was $1m in debt, calling the whole experience "a nightmare".
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Largest unclaimed lottery win in Europe
In 2008 a Sicilian woman won a huge £79m jackpot in the Italian lottery.
Before she could come forward to collect the winnings, several consumer groups created a furore demanding the money be seized by the government.
The "unlucky" winner went into hiding, fearing the Mafia had got wind of her identity and were about to come calling.
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The original bad luck lottery win
A contender for the original unlucky lottery winner, American Charles Riddle thought he was set for life after landing $1m in a lottery in 1975.
One rapid-fire divorce and several lawsuits later, Riddle was indicted for selling cocaine.
Andrew Whittaker Jr of West Virginia won an impressive $314.9 million in an American lottery draw on Christmas Day 2002.
As many people do, he opted for the lump sum payout, and after tax he collected the still impressive sum of $114 million, although this did mean losing a heart-stopping $200.9 million in the process.
What happened next is worthy of an entry alone as legal problems, theft, drug schemes and even a devastating family death saw the fortune dwindle, leaving Whittaker and his wife miserable.
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Britain's biggest lottery win
The winner of Britain's single biggest lottery jackpot came forward after a public appeal from Camelot in 2007.
Mother-of-one Angela Kelly only checked the ticket lying loose in her handbag when she heard the winnings had gone unclaimed.
The £1.50 lucky dip pick scooped her £35.4 million, and her days of sorting post in a Royal Mail office were over.
A tale surely destined for the big screen at some point, former binman from Norfolk Michael Carroll won £9.7 million in 2002.
A self-proclaimed hellraiser, the tabloids declared him the "Lotto Lout" and took delight in his spectacular downfall which saw over 30 court appearances and jail time.
Recent rumours persist he is now broke, but Carroll denies it. Loudly.
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Always check your numbers
It's not a particularly new scene, a man goes to the store and asks the assistant to check his lottery ticket, and is told, "sorry, not this time".
Except it was the winning ticket, and the female clerk in the Louisiana petrol station kept it and handed it to her mother who then tried to claim the $800,000 prize.
The due were caught, and while the crime didnt pay, it seems the ticket won't either as it and the money were claimed as evidence and the original winner still hasn't seen a penny.
A Spanish man won a record 126,231,764 euro (£113 million) jackpot earlier this year, smashing the previous Euro Millions record which had been held for almost four years.
The unnamed player was the only one to pick five correct numbers in the jackpot draw in Paris, beating odds of 76 million to one.
Despite being a ludicrously large sum, it works out at around four years wages for footballing superstar David Beckham.
Have you ever had a big win, or even a big loss? Share your lottery stories with us below.
See also: Mystery Flintshire lottery winner comes forward