Lottery winner forced to wait six months for jackpot prize after making mistake with ticket… before making it even worse

, the lotto advisor revealed when a man won a six-figure pay out, but only realised after he had mistakenly ran it through a washing machine when leaving his wallet in his jeans pocket.

And to double-down on the error he tried to dry it - using an iron - and watched as his soaking wet ticket went up in smoke.

The lotto expert told the media outlet: "One time I dealt with a man who claimed his prize with us in plenty of time.

"He was an older man and he lived by himself, and he put his trousers in the washing machine along with his wallet.

"In the wallet was some cash, along with his winning ticket — it was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"Anyway, the wallet came out of the washing machine with everything intact.

"But the banknotes were all sort of screwed up. So he gave them a quick iron — and he also gave his ticket a quick iron."

And it was this move that almost cost the elderly winner a life-changing amount of cash.

Andy, added: "The paper in our tickets reacts to heat — when the heat of an iron hits it, it goes black.

"Everything, all the numbers and all the barcodes — all the information we need on the front of the ticket just went black.

Andy said the winner - who at the time may not have won a thing thanks to his not-so-quick thinking - was "horrified".

Thankfully though, because he had already called lotto to claim his prize they already had all the information they needed - but he still had to endure a six-month wait before he could get his hands on the mammoth amount of cash.

Andy, said: "But as he had already called in before this happened, we already had all the right information from him, the numbers and so forth. If he hadn't called in, we'd have had a real problem.

"We had to do a lot of investigation, and he had to wait a long time for that money to be paid — 180 days is the claim period, and we had to see whether or not anyone else would come forward with a ticket.

"He got paid eventually — but it was a six-month wait because he ironed the ticket."

Many dream of winning big on their weekly lotto picks - and some get to live it - winning chests of cash so big they needn't worry about getting to work on time the next day.

South Wales based Les Scadding, 73, was unemployed and £68 overdrawn when he forgot his usual "lucky" numbers and bought a lucky dip.

The Welshman won a mouth-watering £45million on the Euromillions.