Judge agrees Turkish waiter deserves share of winnings after ‘dreaming of winning EuroMillions draw’
Fatih Özcan (left) and Hayati Küçükköylü
A Turkish restaurant owner has been ordered to split the prize of his winning lottery ticket with one of his waiters.
Hayati Küçükköylü had paid for the EuroMillions ticket that won him £1 million in January 2012.
But this week a judge ordered him to divide the sum equally with his waiter Fatih Özcan, who claimed he predicted his boss’s windfall.
Mr Özcan argued it had been his idea to buy a ticket because he had seen the jackpot win in a dream and persuaded Mr Küçükköylü to buy a ticket.
A judge said his explanation was entirely “plausible”.
Shortly after the win, a dispute between the two turned bitter and the waiter contacted the police and lottery organisers Camelots to claim, falsely, that his boss had stolen the winning ticket from his jacket pocket.
Mr Küçükköylü was questioned on suspicion of theft by police on nine hours but released without charge. The case ended up in court, where the judge reviewed CCTV footage of the two men filling in the winning ticket.
The judge said: “I cannot see why he [Fatih Özcan] would be so determined to make his employer play if he was not directly to benefit.
“It is much more likely that he would badger his employer for hours if his dream was that they had played together and he needed his employer to play for the dream to come true.
