Couple miss out on £3.6m EuroMillions prize when their numbers come up weeks after they stopped playing

Terry Davies, 44, and fiancé Samantha Eves say there were ‘absolutely gutted’ when their lucky numbers finally came through

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A couple say they are “absolutely gutted” at their lottery numbers coming up in the EuroMillions draw - just six weeks after they had stopped playing.

Terry Davies, 44, and fiancé Samantha Eves, 50, won nothing when their lucky numbers came up in a  €4.3million (£3.6m) jackpot ‘Set for Life’ draw.

The couple started playing the UK version of ‘Set for Life’ four years ago and used 32, 33, 35, 44 and 47 each time they entered the draw.

But since then they have moved to County Wexford in the Republic of Ireland, where they were not able to play the UK and so switched to the Euromillions.

The couple was hit with a sucker punch on 27 December when at last their numbers came up.

“You know that feeling, that one day you’re going to win the lottery? I actually had that feeling,” Mr Davies told The Irish Sun.

“It was about 2018 that I started with those numbers and I never got anything. The most I ever got was two. When we came here, I thought you can’t do ‘Set of Life’ here, so I’ll do Euro millions instead. It made sense to drop that one.

“I had stopped for about six weeks, but one night I thought I’ll just check the ‘Set for Life’ draw on the app and when I saw the numbers, I nearly cried. I just thought, this is bloody typical.”

Gamblers who enter the Set for Life draw can win £10,000 every month for up to 30 years - the equivalent of £3.6m in total.

Mr Davies, who had an IT company in the UK but is yet to find work in Ireland, said he and wife Samantha were devastated at first but soon learned to laugh about the ordeal.

“We were in a pub last night, and we told some of the guys at the bar and they all laughed. And they all said, ‘Oh my god, it’s the kind of thing you’d read about in The Irish Sun.”

When asked how he would spend the cash if he did win big, Mr Davies said “the first thing...is go on holiday, to the Maldives or something like that.”