Boy who cried wolf? Prank backfires perfectly

By Kate Northrop

A UK man didn't believe his wife had won £1 million (US$1.3 million) in the lottery considering she had just pranked him with a fake win two weeks earlier.

In 2018, a UK woman won a £1 million EuroMillions prize, but seeing as how she had just pranked her husband with a fake lottery ticket two weeks earlier, convincing him it was real was the hardest part about the win.

When she was 28 years old, Charlotte Peart of Whittlesey put down £1.50 for one lucky EuroMillions HotPicks ticket that won her £1 million prize.

"I went to deposit £10 into my online lottery account, and saw there was £1.50 sitting in there, so I used that to get a ticket, and it happened to be the winning draw," Charlotte told The Mirror. "It was definitely a £1.50 well spent — and it was pure luck."

To her husband, Daniel, it was even more unbelievable than the £250,000 prize on a fake scratch-off ticket she had tricked him with. The joke landed well enough that when the genuine seven-figure win actually landed in the couple's online lottery account a couple weeks later, Daniel was certain his wife was pulling the same trick twice.

"He didn't believe me," Charlotte said in a 2018 news report.

Daniel, a self-employed carpenter, was working when his wife called with the news. According to a 2018 ITV News report, he handed the phone to his brother rather than take her word for it. It wasn't until Daniel logged into their shared lottery account and saw the £1 million balance that the win started to feel real.

But Charlotte herself admitted she didn't believe it at first either. She said she initially mistook the jackpot notification on her screen for an advertisement rather than a genuine prize alert.

"I don't even think you can describe it in 1,000 words, because there are so many emotions you feel," Charlotte said of the moment of realization. "You want to laugh, cry and scream, there are so many feelings that go through your mind, but all I could think was, 'Our lives are about to change.'"

The winning ticket for the August 28, 2018 EuroMillions HotPicks draw beat the odds of 1 in 2.1  million and matched all five numbers: 4, 16, 32, 42, and 46.

Charlotte has been playing the lottery sporadically since she was about 19 years old, but she never imagined she would win one day. Interestingly enough, it was Daniel whose vision of winning the lottery predated Charlotte's when he told his mother at the age of 13: "I'm going to win the lottery one day."

The couple has since been together for a total of 15 years and now share three children aged 18, 14, and 13.

Three months after the win, the family moved into a larger home in Whittlesey, an area Charlotte had wanted to live in since childhood. The couple also booked a three-day "magical" trip to Lapland a month after that.

"The house and holidays were the two things we were really pleased about, and we wouldn't have been able to do them without winning the lottery," Charlotte said.

One thing that didn't change as a result of the win was their Christmas budget. Even with the extra financial wiggle room, they held firm to the allocated allowance for their three children.

"We could have bought them everything they wanted, but we thought, what are they going to learn from that?" Charlotte explained. "We try to live our lives as normally as possible. We believe that if we just behave normally, it helps other people feel normal around us as well. We're just your ordinary people, winners from all kinds of communities across the UK, so it's pure luck, and it can happen anywhere."

Charlotte formerly worked as an administrative worker but quit her job after the win, while Daniel continued his work as a self-employed carpenter. More recently, Charlotte has been spending her time giving back to her hometown, including kickstarting a Ladies Circle group in Whittlesey, a branch of a global service network for young women or an informal, non-judgmental gathering for mutual support.

"The town has supported us through it, so it's giving back, and the lottery has allowed me to do it because of the position I'm in, as I don't need to concentrate so much on working and providing," Charlotte continued. "Without the lottery, it could have taken me longer to get to this point."

(Click to display full-size in gallery)Charlotte and her husband, Daniel Peart, won £1 million playing UK EuroMillions Hotpicks.