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Sun, Feb 22, 2026

Woman becomes the 'richest person in the world' with £63 QUADRILLION to her name after gift card slip-up - but can only spend it on coffee

Woman becomes the 'richest person in the world' with £63 QUADRILLION to her name after gift card slip-up - but can only spend it on coffee

A Nottingham business owner has become the richest person in the history of the world - but only on paper. 

Sophie Downing, 29, was given what she thought was a £10 coffee shop voucher for Christmas.

But she discovered the balance on the gift card totalled more than £63 quadrillion when using it to buy a matcha latte last week. 

That's 63 with 15 zeros. Or a thousand trillion. Or a million billion. 

Of course, the 29-year-old is not literally a quadrillionaire - there was just a mix-up on the till at 200 Degrees Coffee. 

But a gift voucher totalling that amount would set her up with free matcha lattes for life, and then some. 

While not liquid cash, it makes the matcha magnate a whopping 100,000 times richer than her closest competitor, centibillionaire Elon Musk

The balance is also 670 times the total of the world economy.

Sophie Downing, 29, who lives in Nottingham, has a coffee shop voucher worth £63 quadrillion

Pictured: The receipt as proof that she is richer than Elon Musk - at least when it comes to matcha lattes and croissants

Pictured: The receipt as proof that she is richer than Elon Musk - at least when it comes to matcha lattes and croissants

WHAT IS £63 QUADRILLION WORTH?  

  • 91,304 Elon Musks. Musk is the wealthiest person on Earth with an estimated net worth of $690billion (£512billion) 
  • 21,799 Apple, Incs. The tech giant behind the iPhone is worth $3.89trillion (£2.89trillion) - and is worth more than the GDP of some countries
  • 566 times the total amount of cash in the world. In 2025 it was estimated that the total amount of cash across both physical and digital savings in world was $150trillion (£111.3trillion)
  • 13 quadrillion, 43 trillion, 478 billion (13,043,478,000,000,000) Big Macs bought at £5.29, the price listed on the Economist's Big Mac Index
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Ms Downing told Nottinghamshire Live: 'I thought it was really funny. I've never seen anything like that before.'

She first used the gift card at the 200 Degrees Coffee shop in Flying Horse Walk in Nottingham city centre during her lunch break on Thursday, February 12.

'The guy at the till was really confused. His face was just like 'what?'

'This massive number came up on the till. He said 'I've never seen it before but it's fine for you to keep it'.

'I didn't clock it until he gave me the receipt. I thought 'surely not, that's actually crazy.'' 

Ms Downing, who runs the Secret Sugar Club, a hair removal service, used the gift card for a second time on Tuesday, February 17, and saw the balance still in its tens of quadrillions.

Ms Downing said: 'Maybe they have scanned the wrong thing. 

'It looks as though they have scanned the barcode which has turned into the balance.

'I could go in and clear everything off the shelf but I don't want to take the mick.

'It would be better if it was a different gift card.'

The cafe has, however, cleared up the situation - and unfortunately for Ms Downing her future is not one of limitless lattes. 

A spokesperson for 200 Degrees said: 'Due to a technical administrative error, the gift card number, rather than the gift card value was entered into the wrong part of the till.

'As a result, the customer was generated a receipt which suggested they had a rather higher amount of money left on their gift card than they actually did.

'The customer was only charged exactly what they should have been, and after they had completed their purchase, their gift card had exactly the right amount left on it, they just had a receipt which showed a very different amount, which the barista gave them as a souvenir.

'They were then given a correct receipt which showed the true value of the gift card.'

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