A man in the United States has won a $8.9 million-jackpot from a lottery ticket that he had forgotten about.
Wilbur Brown from Oregon had purchased a multi-drawing Megabucks ticket on Christmas eve in 2021. The ticket covered 13 weeks, each drawing from December 25, 2021, to February 19, 2022, according to the Oregon lottery website.
Brown said he checked his ticket after the first few drawings but then tucked it away in his wallet. “Then I just kind of forgot about it and wasn’t checking,” he was quoted as saying by the website.
Last month, Brown went back to the lodge from where he had bought the ticket and decided to have it checked. When he gave the ticket to a server for a scan, the message “large lottery winner” popped up.
Brown was puzzled. He and some of his friends checked the internet for lottery results and discovered that he had indeed won.
"Brown won his big prize on the eighth drawing on his 26-drawing ticket and his winning numbers were 15, 33, 34, 40, 42, and 47," the Oregon lottery website said.
The prize money will be paid out over 30 years. The winner has opted to take annual cheques of over $200,000.
Many others are now buying the ticket that Brown got, in the hopes of hitting jackpots themselves.
Moose Lodge, that sold the ticket to Brown, will receive one percent of the prize money -- $89,000 .
The lodge's manager Michael Scott said the business had been facing challenges for the last couple of years.
“The influence of receiving such a big chunk of change is huge! We’ll be working with our members to figure out the best way to use the bonus money," he added.
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