Weird Lottery Stories: We Can’t Make This Up!

In 2003, 110 tickets matched numbers drawn to win the second-highest Powerball prize division. Normally the number of winners in a Powerball draw to is none to four, so in this case, the organizers suspected fraud.

What they found was much more interesting than a case of lottery tampering – a lucky fortune cookie had been making the rounds in Chinese restaurants across the country and people played the cookie’s lucky numbers. 89 ticket holders won US$100,000 and 21 won US$500,000 because they chose the Power Play which multiplied their winnings. An important lesson learned… cookies are good for you!

Whilst helping out their grandson with a school project, Nicole Pedneault and Roger Larocque came upon an extremely rewarding surprise from their research. Hidden in a nearly-forgotten book about Japan was a C$1 million (US$750,000) winning Loto Quebec ticket from an 15 April, 2018 draw. “If my grandson hadn’t asked me to give him some things for his presentation, I wouldn’t have ever found the ticket,” Pedneault said.

As it was already April 2019, a whole year since the ticket had been purchased, the couple immediately checked the Loto Quebec website to see if the ticket had already expired. Fortunately, they had found the ticket just in time, as they had just two days left to claim their impressive prize. “It’s all just by chance that we found it at the last minute like that,” the winner said as she claimed her check. Want to try your hand at Canadian lotteries? Play Canada Lotto 6/49 but don’t forget where you put your ticket!

James Bozeman Jr., won the Florida Lotto twice with tickets purchased at the same 7-Eleven convenience store; his total winnings are US$13 million. A couple in Virginia won the lottery three times in one month; they won US$1 million with a Powerball ticket on 12 March 2014, then won US$50,000 on 26 March with a Virginia Lottery Pick 4 ticket, and yet another US$1 million with a Virginia Lottery Scratcher ticket the very next day! In Norway, three members of the Oksnes family won the lottery three times in six years. Some lottery players have enjoyed quite a bit of lottery luck, and this shows that anyone, if really lucky could win the lottery more than once!

New York City police detective Robert Cunningham frequented his favourite restaurant for eight years. Detective Cunningham was just about to leave a tip for Phyllis Penzo, who had been a waitress at the restaurant for 24 years, when instead he offered her the following deal: split whatever the lottery ticket in his pocket might win them. She agreed, and the rest is history – the two won US$6 million together. The lucky cop and waitress split the prize after electing to receive annual payments of US$285,715.

Nicholas Cage starred in a movie based on the event, called It Could Happen to You. Check it out!

Andrew Clark from Lincolnshire, is a very lucky man indeed. At the urging of his wife and niece, he combed through his much-laughed-at stockpile of old lottery tickets on the dashboard of his van, after lottery operators posted an unclaimed EuroMillions jackpot weeks earlier. The ticket he found there was a winner – worth £76 million! When asked about finding the lucky EuroMillions lottery ticket, the self-employed builder told reporters “It almost feels like some magical Christmas story – the man who nearly lost £76 million!” This EuroMillions jackpot was, at the time, the 12th biggest jackpot win ever in the UK.

In the late 90’s, Bill Morgan, an Australian truck driver, suffered a fatal heart attack after being crushed in an accident. He was clinically dead for 14 minutes, a span of time from which most people rarely recover without significant neurological or brain damage. However, he refused to be a statistic and woke up from a medically induced coma after 12 days with all of his faculties perfectly intact!

It wasn’t long after this bizarre chain of events that Bill Morgan decided to buy a scratch-off ticket at a lottery stall, and ended winning a car worth US$17,000! A local TV station asked him to re-enact the win for a story, which was when Moran scratched off a ticket that won him another US$170,000! We don’t think even a psychic could predict a win like this! Some people have asked him to try his luck a third time, but Bill has so far refused.

Delivery man Joseph Cobbs III from North Carolina heard that his local shop had issued a winning lottery ticket for nearly US$650,000. He’d bought one, too, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember where he’d put it. He searched every corner of his house, but he couldn’t find it. He then got his fiancee, Kendra Batts, to help searching. They finally found Joseph’s ticket in the trash on top of some smelly food remains. Joseph split his winnings with a beaming Kendra.

A similar story is that of Joemel Panisa from Oregon. This is a very amusing Mega Millions anecdote! On a snowy day in January 2017, he spent time cleaning out his office. He found an envelope that he had put away one year previous and totally forgotten about. Inside the envelope was a winning Mega Millions lottery ticket! Luckily Panisa was able to claim his US$1 million prize just in time before the ticket expired. Either he should start thinking about cleaning his office more often or play it safe by playing online!

We’re taught to always be polite and respectful, especially to our elders. Mindy Crandall took this lesson to heart and let 84-year-old Gloria Mackenzie cut in line at a supermarket in Zephyrhills, Florida. One of the things on both ladies’ shopping list was a Powerball ticket. “Another lottery player was kind enough to let me go ahead of them in line to purchase the winning Quick Pick ticket,” Mackenzie said. Because of the line jump, Mackenzie won US$590 million in the draw on 18 May 2013. The lucky winner donated US$2 million of her winnings to her old high school, which was in dire need of financial help. She also started a foundation dedicated to providing grants to programs aimed at improving the quality of life for the residents of Maine. Many winners share their winnings by giving back through charities and by establishing foundations!

A very lucky New Jersey man experienced a similar act of kindness from a stranger that helped him win a Mega Millions jackpot worth US$273 million on 8 March 2019. Michael J. Weirsky had forgotten his tickets on the counter of a Phillipsburg QuickChek convenience store while checking something on his phone. A good Samaritan saw Michael’s forgotten tickets and turned them over to the store clerk. After searching for hours, Michael contacted the store and was told that someone had turned them in earlier. “I was very thankful there was an honest person out there because I thought it was gone,” he said.