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Google PlayOregon man Wilbur Brown bought a lottery ticket on Christmas Eve only to promptly forget about it, and now he’s $8.9 million richer after he rediscovered it.
According to the Oregon Lottery, Brown purchased a “26 for $25” Oregon Megabucks ticket last year, which allowed him to enter 26 consecutive Megabucks drawings. The ticket ultimately covered draws from Dec. 25, 2021 to Feb. 19, and he eventually forgot he put it in his wallet despite checking after the early draws.
“After the first few drawings, I’d check my ticket… Then I just kind of forgot about it and wasn’t checking,” said Brown. In February, he suddenly remembered his ticket and scanned it at a self-check terminal only to be greeted by a message telling him to speak with customer service. When a server scanned, a message popped up that read, “Large Lottery Winner.” Brown had no clue how much he had won, until his friends checked the results and revealed just how large his winnings were.
Instead of choosing to receive all of his winnings at once, Brown said that he chose the 30-year annuity option so that he could receive just over $200,000 each year. The venue where he scanned the ticket, the Moose Lodge in Springfield, received 1 percent of the jackpot for a total of $89,00. “The last couple of years have been a challenge for us,” said the manager, Michael Scott (not to be confused with Steve Carrell’s character from the Office). “Now everyone is buying the ‘26 for $25’ Megabucks tickets.”
In January, a Michigan woman accidentally discovered that she had won a $4 million Mega Millions prize after she checked her email spam folder. “I was looking for a missing email from someone, so I checked the spam folder in my email account,” said 55-year-old, Laura Spears. “That’s when I saw an email from the Lottery saying I had won a prize.” As KTLA reported last year, a Californian woman said she accidentally lost her $26 million-winning lottery ticket when she put it in the wash.
