Some may call it an accident, but by most accounts, Kenneth J. Stokes of Norwood, Mass., is a lucky man.
He won $546,000 in the Massachusetts State Lottery this week after his number came up twice, according to ABC’s Good Morning America.
This is what happened: He is a lottery season ticket holder in the Massachusetts State Lottery Lucky for Life, which automatically enters him into every drawing of a certain lottery with specific, preset numbers of his choosing, the report says.
But Monday, Stokes apparently forgot about the season pass and purchased a second ticket with the same sequence of numbers, the morning show reports.
He received a call from lotto officials on Tuesday morning about his newfound fortune.
“The representative called the individual who was the owner of the season ticket and informed him of that, and then he was obviously elated to find out that he had won on that ticket,” Massachusetts State Lottery Director of Communications Christian Teja told ABC News. “They hung up and he realized that he had purchased the same ticket on his own for that same drawing. During the phone call when they had spoken, the representative had mentioned there was another winner from Norwood. He called back and it all came together when he was like, ‘I’m that guy in Norwood.’”
What are the odds of that? About 1 in 9.7 trillion. He plans to use the winnings to pay his son’s college tuition and his daughter’s remaining car payments, as well as to take his family on a vacation, according to ABC.
Read more at Yahoo News.