On the day that London was successful in its the bid to host the Olympic Games, 180 miles away in Doncaster another winner overcame even longer odds to strike gold.

The winner of the £9.5 million Lottery jackpot, however, has lost a fortune today when he, or she, failed to claim before a 180-day deadline expired at 1730 GMT.

Camelot made several attempts to alert the mystery winner, engaging the services of the model Nell McAndrew and the entire cast of Doncaster's Aladdin pantomime for a press stunt to prod the unsuspecting millionaire's memory.

The attempts proved fruitless and now the £9,476,995 will be poured back into the Lottery's good causes fund.

The ticket was purchased on July 2 with the six winning numbers 3, 12, 17, 36, 44 and 49.

Dan Humphreys, a spokesman for the National Lottery, had urged players in the area to doublecheck their old Lotto tickets, turn out their pockets and search down the back of their sofas.

Even if the winning ticketholder had come forward he or she would already have lost £211,000 interest which could have been earned if the money had been invested in July.

The largest unclaimed prize before today was a £7 million ticket bought in Belfast for a draw in August last year.

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