Any lottery retailer will tell you that sometimes they mispunch and print out the wrong ticket. Since tickets can't be returned, often the retailer just buys the ticket himself. Sometimes another customer will buy it.
John from Toledo has purchased those "mistake" tickets before, but this time it paid off to the tune of $2 million!
Last week, John visited S & G in Toledo to get gas. He stopped in to talk to the clerk, and she mentioned she had a mistake ticket.
"She said, oh I'm stuck with this Powerball ticket. I don't ever play Powerball, so I said how much is it? She told me it was $12 and it was good for two drawings. So I bought it. All the carry-outs I go to the people are very nice, so I've done that before and said I'll help you out, I'll buy it!" John said.
He couldn't predict how his life was about to change.
John tucked the ticket into an envelope and went on with his day. Sunday night he remembered that he had a Powerball ticket, so he checked the numbers in the newspaper and discovered that he had matched the first five numbers.
John's not a regular Powerball player, so he went to the website to find out how much he had won. He was stunned to see it was a $1 million prize. What he didn't realize was that the ticket had also matched the Powerplay number, which bumped his prize to $2 million!
"It was a very good surprise. I'm still numb, but maybe I'll be able to retire now," he said.
There were two winning tickets sold for the October 3 drawing, and both were sold at S & G. The winning numbers were 18-31-36-43-47. The Powerball number was 20 and the Power Play number was 2.
John's ticket added Power Play for $1 a wager, boosting the prize to $2 million. The other ticket also matched 5-of-5 numbers, but without the Power Play option, earning the lucky ticket holder a $1-million prize.
So the next time a retailer has a ticket that was printed by mistake, maybe you should snatch it up! It might be the next big winner.