Washington Man Almost Threw Away $2.7 Million Lottery Ticket

A Sunnyside, Washington man didn't realize he won the lottery at first and almost threw out his winning ticket, according to KOMO.

The winning numbers for a $2.7 million lottery jackpot were drawn on May 1, but the winner didn't know he had the ticket initially. The next morning, the 25-year-old resident popped into Sunnyside Safeway to buy a soda and stopped at the lottery vending machine, reporters said. He scanned his ticket and nearly missed out on the big prize.

“When you win a few bucks, the machine displays a message that asks if you want to reinvest your winnings and buy a new ticket, and when you do, you click ‘OK’ on the screen,” he told KOMO. “So, I just clicked ‘OK’ and almost tossed the ticket in the trash but then I thought that the screen had looked a little different, so I scanned it again and it said ‘Woo hoo!’ and told me to contact a Lottery office.”

The winner, who is a construction worker, called his wife on his way to work and told her, "Well, we won more than $600, so that’s cool. See you after work." Later that night after he got home did he look up the winning numbers and realized he won millions of dollars.

The winner and his wife traveled to Yakima Regional Office of Washington’s Lottery Wednesday (May 5) and claimed his prize.

“This certainly will make our retirement years quite a bit easier,” added the winner. “Thank goodness I did that double-take and scanned the ticket again.”

Photo: Getty Images