A PENSIONER has spent 25 painful years trying to prove that he once won a £2million lottery prize but lost the golden ticket.
Robert Clemett, from Sydney, claims that he hadn’t realised the jackpot was his until a story about the unclaimed prize aired on TV four years later.
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On September 23, 1997, the Oz Lotto draw was supposed to produce three big winners.
Instead, one huge jackpot has remained unclaimed – the largest outstanding prize in New South Wales’ history.
Clemett has spent decades fighting for the prize money after he said he realised his mistake while watching a broadcast about unclaimed lottery prizes in 2021.
He then immediately wrote to the lottery company to demand his win.
He alleges that he bought the all-important ticket for £32 at a newsagents and that it included a game with six winning numbers.
He has provided the details of the time and date of his purchase, the number of games he played, the type of ticket and the exact composition of numbers.
In 2014, he sued the state lottery over the unclaimed £2million but his case was dismissed by the judge.
Roughly 50 people have contacted New South Wales (NSW) Lotteries to claim the windfall.
However, Clemett is the only to have fought for it all the way up to the NSW Supreme Court.
The state lottery told the court that without a ticket, his claim was invalid and they had no obligation to pay out the big sum.
The judge later dismissed the case.
“I am not satisfied that he did [buy the ticket],” Justice McCallum said.
She argued that he may genuinely believe that he did submit the winning entry after he “persuaded himself over a period of years that he is the rightful claimant”.
Clemett was then forced to pay the NSW Lotteries’ legal costs.
Yet, the unlucky lotto player still appears to have not backed down on his claim that the jackpot belongs to him.
In a Facebook post in 2019, he fumed: “Why an AUSTRALIAN CITIZEN purchased a WINNING TICKET in a MAJOR LOTTERY DRAW but some TWENTY TWO YEARS later, is still to be AWARDED The FIRST DIVISION PRIZE MONEY.”
He added that he has “begged” the NSW Supreme Court to reconsider so that a “SEMBLANCE OF JUSTICE” may one day be “delivered”.
Adding to the mystery, another Sydney pensioner has also lodged a claim that he once held the golden ticket.
David Renshaw has accused a shop attendant of binning the ticket that would secure the £2million win, reports the Hawkesbury Gazette.
He told a court in 2020 that when he handed over the ticket the words “provisional winner” came up.
Renshaw then claimed that the person behind the till – who is said to have not spoken English very well – threw it in the bin and declared “no winner”.
Being on parole at the time, he didn’t want to fish it out the bin in case he was accused of “stealing”.
The lottery’s defence was that even if the ticket belonged to Renshaw then he was well out of time to bring the case forward.
In 1997, the legislation dictated that you only have three years to claim the lottery win.
The law was later extended to a period of six years, but even so, the lawyers argued, it was “again well out of time”.
It comes as a lottery crew won half a million pounds but they’re only taking home £12,500 each as it had to be split between 40 of them.
The mega win comes after another lottery winner told of how a £3000-a-month for 2024 win has ended up being a curse.
Craig Hill from Brisbane had his good fortune wiped away when authorities told him they would be taking half of his earnings.
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Iona Cleave
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