A DESPERATE search for three lottery winners who scooped prizes in the same area of the country has been launched.
The National Lottery has urged Set For Life players to check their tickets as three winners are sitting on life-changing sums.
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The deadline to claim the prize worth £360,000 falls on July 8 after the winning tickets were bought on January 9 in County Durham.
“It is a most unusual situation,” Camelot spokesman Patrick Lisoire told the Mirror. “We don’t know if one person has bought three tickets with the same numbers. Perhaps the tickets belong to a syndicate.
“It is possible that a husband bought one without knowing his wife had got one as well with the same numbers – and maybe the third came from another family member.
“But the winner or winners are out there in Co Durham and they need to check their tickets quickly to claim these prizes.”
Three men even posed as Durham miners in 1900s costumes at Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, to help raise awareness.
Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, the Remaking Beamish project was awarded £10.9million by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2016.
The first National Lottery draw was held on November 19 1994 when seven winners shared a jackpot of £5,874,778.
The largest amount ever to be won by a single ticket holder was £42million, won in 1996.
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The biggest jackpot ever to be up for grabs was £66million in January last year, which was won by two lucky ticket holders.
The odds of winning the lottery are estimated to be about one in 14million – BUT you’ve got to be in it to win it.
