Scottish Couple Wins $75.5 Million After Clerk Rips Their Winning Ticket in Half

A Scottish couple was faced with missing out on more than $70 million when a clerk ripped their winning ticket in half. 

Fred and Lesley Higgins took their ticket from a July 10 drawing to a store in Aberdeenshire and handed it to the clerk. He reportedly put it in the machine and ripped it in two before throwing it away, as is customary, not realizing the machine's instructions.

"The terminal produced a chitty (voucher), which said I needed to retain my ticket and call Camelot," Higgins said in an interview. "The retailer immediately grabbed it out of the bin and handed it to me."

Camelot officials said they performed checks on the ticket, including reviewing CCTV footage from the store to verify the ripped ticket, and confirmed it was a winner. 

The ticket, which had the numbers 3-8-26-33-45 and the Lucky Star numbers 7 and 10, was worth $75.5 million.

"I wasn't ever concerned that we wouldn't get the money as I knew it was an honest mistake — it just had to be looked at to make sure everything was correct," Higgins said. 

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