The girl who started the first UK Lottery draw has never won a prize in 25 years

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Debbie Bowen and presenter Noel Edmonds in 1994 with the first UK National Lottery draw numbers. PHOTO: The Sun

She's seen hundreds of millionaires win the UK Lottery. Debbie Bowen beat 48 others in a bid to start the lottery's first draw machine on a live tv show in 1994.

She was 18-years-old and then known as Deborah Walsh.

Some 45 million ticket sets were sold. Anyone over the age of 16 was able to buy a £1 ticket and select six numbers between 1 and 49.

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On the lottery's launch night at 7pm in front of 25 million viewers, seven jackpot winners shared £5,874,778.

Debbie took home a plastic trophy, but since then she has never won a penny after playing the lottery for 25 years.

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Debbie Bowen today, still wondering why she’s never won. PHOTO: The Sun

The 39-year-old primary school teacher from Northwich, Cheshire, told The Sun: “It would be nice for me to win one day. It is ironic that since I started it loads of people have become millionaires and I’ve never won a thing.”

She recalled the hour-long Saturday game on 19 November 1994 clearly: “The whole night went by so quickly – especially the bit where I actually released the balls.”

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The moment when Debbie Bowden pressed the button held by drawmaster John Willan to release the lottery balls in 1994.

Since that night Debbie has played the UK Lottery almost every week, but so far hasn't even won a £10 prize.

The primary school teacher added: "I always play with the number 22 – my lucky number."

"It was my number on the night of the draw and it’s the date of my wedding anniversary."

While they have brought her no luck, she has had a lot of happy memories.

The first UK National Lottery draw in 1994. The countdown for Debbie Bowden starts at 2:40.

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The First UK Lottery Draw - Did You Know?

  • Inspired by the Lottery’s ‘It Could Be You’ slogan, Brits bought 48,965,792 tickets for the first draw.

  • Of these, 1,152,611 were winners, with the lucky punters sharing a prize fund of just over £22 million between them.

  • The first winning numbers, in the order in which they were drawn, were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22. The bonus ball was 10.

  • The jackpot fund was initially estimated at £6.9 million, but this was revised downwards to £5.9m because of a large number of more than one million players who matched three numbers to win £10 each.

  • There was a big gap in the prize won for matching five numbers (£528), and what was received by those matching five numbers plus the bonus ball (£46,349).