A Lotto player is taking Camelot to court over a £1 million ‘jackpot’ the firm is refusing to pay.
Joan Parker-Grennan, from Boston, Lincolnshire, could not believe her eyes when she found she had a winning scratchcard on a £20 Million Online Spectacular game.
Like any other gambler, the 53-year-old was preparing to celebrate big when the National Lottery operator put a break on her dreams, saying her success was a ‘technical glitch’ in the system.
This meant the game displayed numbers in the wrong boxes and she had only landed £10.
After nearly seven years of arguing with Camelot, Ms Parker-Grennan’s legal team plans to take them to the High Court.
‘My solicitors have already offered them the chance to settle and pay £700,000, £800,000 or £900,000’, the bookkeeper told the Mirror.
‘They took the game offline within a day of me making the claim. They told me in an email it was a glitch.’
If her High Court claim is successful, Ms Parker-Grennan and her husband Dave, 60, said they could spend the money on a kitchen island and investments.
Her £1 million claim is for ‘monies due under the terms of a consumer contract between the parties and/or damages for breach of a consumer contract’.
A Camelot spokesperson said the incident related to ‘a very small number of National Lottery players who had a problem when playing the £20million Cash Spectacular Online Instant Win Game, relating to how the game animation displayed’.
They added: ‘A procedural hearing has been scheduled to take place in June 2022, but a trial date has not yet been set.’
It comes after Camelot was fined £3.15 million by the Gambling Commission for technical issues on its mobile app last month.
Just days ago, the firm also started its own legal proceedings against the government agency after rival Allwyn was selected as the preferred applicant for the lottery’s next licence beginning in 2024.
The decision came after a bidding process between four parties for the licence, which the company has held since 1994.
Chief executive Nigel Railton said they are bringing the legal action because it ‘firmly believes that the Gambling Commission has got this decision badly wrong’.
He added: ‘Despite lengthy correspondence, the commission has failed to provide a satisfactory response.
‘We are therefore left with no choice but to ask the court to establish what happened.
‘Irrespective of Camelot’s dual roles as current operator and applicant for the next National Lottery licence, the competition is one of the largest UK government-sponsored procurements and the process deserves independent scrutiny.
‘Separately, more than 1,000 Camelot employees work tirelessly to successfully operate the National Lottery under the current licence and, at the very least, they are owed a proper explanation.’
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