Won 2nd Prize with a 1 in 1.8 Million Chance
A man in his 60s in the United States became the lucky winner after accepting a lottery ticket different from what he ordered due to a sales clerk's mistake.
According to CNN and others on the 25th (local time), Michael Sopestal (60), who lives in Illinois, drove to Michigan every few weeks to visit his favorite restaurant. Whenever he went to Michigan, it was his habit to buy 10 to 20 tickets of the "Lucky for Life" lottery, which holds a drawing every night.
On September 17th, Sopestal visited Michigan to go to his regular restaurant and ordered 10 tickets at a convenience store in a gas station in New Buffalo, Michigan, as usual. However, due to a clerk's mistake, he received a single ticket with 10 games instead of 10 separate tickets.
When the clerk realized the mistake later and offered to give him the correct tickets, Sopestal said, "It's okay. I'll take this one," and accepted the ticket as it was.
It turned out that the 9th game on the mistakenly received ticket matched the numbers drawn that day.
The lottery requires matching 5 numbers from 1 to 48 and one Lucky Ball number from 1 to 18 to win first prize. Sopestal's 9th game number combination '11-15-17-24-48' matched the day's drawn numbers except for the Lucky Ball number. He won second prize with odds of 1 in 1.81 million.
Sopestal said, "One morning, I checked the drawn numbers and realized I had won. I thought about what I could do with the prize money. It was an amazing feeling."
The second prize winner of this lottery can receive $25,000 (approximately 32.58 million KRW) annually for 20 years or a lump sum of $390,000 (approximately 508.36 million KRW). Sopestal is reported to have recently taken the lump sum payment.
He plans to travel with the prize money and use the rest for savings and helping others.
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