(Photo : SAUL LOEB/AFP)
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A customer purchases Powerball lottery tickets for the estimated record 425 million USD jackpot prize, Powerball's biggest winnings ever, at a convenience store in Washington on November 26, 2012. The previous drawing resulted in no winner, setting up for the record setting prize when numbers will be drawn on Wednesday. Tickets are sold in 42 US states, Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
After utilizing numbers from a fortune cookie, a North Carolina man won a $4 million Mega Millions lotto prize, a win that left him "dumbfounded."
Following one of his weekly visits to a restaurant called Red Bowl in Charlotte with his wife, the winner, 60-year-old Gabriel Fierro of Cornelius, North Carolina, received the cookie, according to a press release.
North Carolina man wins lottery with cookie numbers
Fierro told officials at the North Carolina Education Lottery that he felt prompted to try the numbers on the paper inside the fortune "on a whim" and that he chose to take a chance.
In addition to the $2 Megaplier option, which allows players to multiply any win, the crippled war veteran, who served in the Army for 32 years, purchased his ticket online for $1.
His wife felt it was "an April Fool's prank or maybe a fraud" until they received the email informing them that he had won. Fierro picked up his reward on Thursday after celebrating his win and has plans to invest the majority of the money, according to the press release.
Another guy from North Carolina won a $500,000 Powerball prize last year after using the numbers from a fortune cookie he received with his Chinese takeout to play the numbers. Between 2004 and 2021, at least 146 people won the lottery using numbers from a fortune cookie, according to a recent research, according to Insider.
Michigan lottery winner discovers her fortune in email's spam
After an email informing her of a $3 million jackpot win landed in her spam box, a Michigan nurse says she's adding the state lottery to her'safe senders' list. In a $1 million New Year's Eve drawing, Laura Spears, 55, matched the five winning numbers: 2, 5, 30, 46, and 61. Thanks to a bonus nicknamed 'Megaplier,' her income tripled to $3 million.
The woman, who lives in Oakland County, said she bought a ticket online in advance of the drawing and was looking through her junk mail a few days later for something unrelated.
She stated she hopes to share her fortune with her family and retire early after winning the reward. She works as a nurse, according to her online documents. The last time a family in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, won the Mega Millions jackpot was on October 22, 2021, when they earned $108 million. The latest prize is $376 million dollars.
Because she spent an extra $2 to increase her prizes, Spears' fortune tripled. A family from Lake Havasu City, Arizona, hit it big with Mega Millions in the past, winning $108 million on October 22nd. The current jackpot is $376 million, and the next drawing will be held on Tuesday, March 31st.
According to the Mega Millions website, Spears' chances of winning the $3 million prize are 1 in 2.5.
Lottery wins are frequently unclaimed. This is due to a failure to examine existing lottery tickets for winning numbers or a misplaced or lost lotto ticket. If they haven't won a jackpot, some people don't know they've won a secondary or smaller reward.
The unclaimed lottery wins totaled $2.89 billion between June 2016 and June 2017, according to lottery expert Brett Jacobson, according to CNN.
Spears, thankfully, will not be a statistic owing to her junk email folder. According to reports, Spears intends to divide her award money with her family. She also intends to retire early, Mail Online reported.
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