A PUB bingo game took a dramatic twist when the winning numbers it generated were the same as those drawn in the National Lottery on the same day.

Marie and Dave Flory, pub managers at the Cumberland Arms in Bishop Auckland, were delighted to share the £50 they won for matching all six numbers in their own draw.

But they were gutted to have missed out on the £11.25m payout from Saturday’s Lotto when, in an amazing co-incidence, they realised the same six numbers from their own sweepstake has also been drawn in the official competition.

Mr and Mrs Flory have been hosting a version of the weekly flutter - called Lottery Bingo – since shortly after they took up management of the Newgate Street pub in July last year.

The game is played much like the National Lottery using bingo balls to choose the winning numbers every Saturday.

If no one guesses all six numbers correctly, the prize money – usually about £50 - is carried over to the next Saturday.

Mr Flory, 55, said: “I won £25 off six numbers when I could have had £11m. I’m gutted.

“It’s never happened before. We used to be entertainments managers at Crimdon. We used to do [Lottery Bingo] there. All the time we were there I’ve never known six numbers come out.

“It’s embarrassing but it’s gutting that I could have had six numbers on the lottery.”

Perhaps learning from his mistake, he vowed to enter these same numbers into the National Lottery on Wednesday.

“You might be talking to me in a couple of week’s time – but I doubt it,” he said.

Mrs Flory, 48, said: “I check the numbers every Sunday morning. When [Dave] came back from the shop I said ‘You’ve six numbers’ and he thought I was winding him up.

“So we went on the internet and checked how many [jackpot] winners there were and there weren’t any. It was gutting. We got £50 instead of eleven-and-a-half million.”

When asked what she would have done with the money had she won it, she said: “It’s unthinkable. We could have had holidays... our daughter gets married in August… It’s our 30th wedding anniversary in September. It would have been immense.

“But it’s not meant to be. We’ve never had it so we’ve not missed it. It would have been very, very nice. But I can’t stop thinking about the ‘what ifs’.”