Man wins $50,000 after accidentally buying the wrong lottery ticket
How lucky do you have to be to buy the wrong ticket and still win?
One incredibly lucky chap who bought the wrong lottery ticket ended up getting $50,000 after it turned out he'd actually won.
Ohio man Ron decided to buy a Mega Millions ticket while out shopping, but accidentally bought the wrong one as he got a Pick 5 ticket where you choose five numbers and if you get them all correct and in the right order you've won and the odds of doing that are one in 100,000.
He picked the numbers 3-0-9-5-7 and that's exactly what came up in the draw on 5 February, so even though he'd bought the wrong kind of lottery ticket it turned out to be a very lucky decision because he'd won.
However, even though the prize pot is $50,000 the bloke does have to pay taxes on his winnings so he'll only get $36,625.
Advert
He plans to use some of it to spoil his grandchildren and he'll donate some of the rest of the money to his church, saying that buying the wrong ticket but still winning is a sign 'it was meant to be'.
It's not the only bit of good luck the bloke has had this year as he's also won several raffles and got $500 from the Super Bowl, so perhaps 2026 is his year.
Also, it's not like his pile of winnings gets into the 'life changing' territory, which can really go one of two ways as some people who get a jackpot end up wishing they'd never won at all.
Many lottery winners who score a jackpot of millions end up blowing through it in just a few years and then realising they've spent a small fortune and have very little to show for it at the end.
Lots of people who win big on the lottery find it changes their relationships with the people around them.
More than one winner has ended up seeing their friends and family come asking for a few grand and it end up changing their relationship for the worse.
After all, would you and your friends still act the same if you bought them a car or a house?
Even more painful are those who never even see much of the money because they get shoddy financial advice which results in it disappearing into investments and other commitments, only for it to never come back.
Lots of people don't know how to deal with the sudden windfall from a lottery win, but for $50,000 you could put it to some good things without blowing up your life.
So here's to Ron enjoying his money and the chance to have been lucky in a particularly unusual way, since there's not many who can say they won the lottery after buying the wrong ticket.
Joe Harker