January 26, 2016
Cleaning out your wallet sometimes uncovers forgotten gift cards or even a crumpled-up dollar bill if you're lucky. For one man, the unexpected prize was a million bucks.
According to the Delaware Lottery, a man living in the Philadelphia suburbs, who wishes to remain anonymous, bought a Powerball ticket in New Castle on Feb. 1, 2015, for the drawing three days later.
His ticket turned out to have five of the winning numbers for that drawing, but not the Powerball number.
However, the 39-year-old winner didn't take the time to check if he had won, as he couldn't scan the Delaware ticket in his Pennsylvania hometown.
"Because I was too lazy to go online and check the winning numbers, the ticket remained unchecked in my wallet until last Friday night," the man told lottery officials.
Almost a year later, on Friday, the man was visiting a friend in Delaware when a heavy snowstorm hit the region.
He decided to use the time they were snowed in by going back and checking the numbers from that drawing, finding out he was a winner. The belated victor claimed his $1 million prize in Dover on Saturday.
The ticket would have expired after a year, lottery officials say.
“My first and only Delaware Lottery purchase was definitely the luckiest in my 20 years of playing the Lottery," he said.
