Man wins $1,000,000 lottery with $20 bill he found on the ground
A man from North Carolina truly found himself on a lucky streak when he came across $20 on the ground and used it to win $1,000,000 on the lottery.
Now that's a good day.
It all started last Tuesday (October 22), when Jerry Hicks, from Banner Elk in the western part of North Carolina, spotted a $20 bill on the ground outside a Speedway convenience store in Boone.
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A lot of people might pick up the money and tuck it into their wallet, excited at the thought of treating themselves to a muffin with their coffee or an extra beer or two at the bar.
But Hicks decided to spend the cash straight away, adding $5 of his own money to purchase a $25 Extreme Cash scratch-off ticket because the type of lotto ticket he usually bought wasn't available.
According to the North Carolina Education Lottery, the odds of winning the top prize of $1 million were 1 in 2,017,650.
But Hicks was that one, and within a matter of minutes he went from being a man who was $20 richer, to a man who was thousands of dollars richer.
On Friday, Hicks went to the North Carolina Education Lottery Headquarters to claim his prize. He could have opted to receive the prize over a 20-year period, but instead opted for a lump-sum payment of $600,000.
The lottery explained that after taxes, Hicks ultimately took home $429,007.
Not a bad profit from a $25 purchase, is it?
After 56 years of working as a carpenter, Hicks plans to use the money to retire, as well as to help his children in the future.
Before that, though, the father was just excited to take his family out to celebrate.
“We are going to head straight to Golden Corral and eat everything they’ve got,” he told lottery officials.
Hicks' newfound fortune is thankfully more permanent than another man who believed he'd had a stroke of luck when he woke up one morning to find a staggering $89,900,912 in his bank account.
Considering he wasn't usually so rich, Manhattan venture capitalist Daniel Levene 'knew it was a mistake' - but that didn't stop him thinking about traveling the world and treating himself to a yacht.
Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the company behind the transaction, E-Trade Financial Corporation, realized their mistake and took the money back.
Still, at least Levene had a taste of that multi-millionaire life - it's more than most of us will get!
Emily Brown