A lucky "power couple" snagged not one, but two $1million (£800,000) winning lottery tickets from their favou1rite retailer— discovering their second win just 20 minutes after the first.
The pair, who have opted to remain anonymous, hail from Maryland and said there is a science to their lotto luck. The duo likes to visit their local 7-Eleven store to scan their old tickets and see if any had been a winner.
There's reportedly a special feature called "replay," which allows players to purchase new tickets as they scan their old ones. The new tickets bear the same numbers as the old ones, making several duplicates to which the couple hadn't realised, according to Maryland lottery officials.
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The man has a specific system when he throws his hat into the lotto ring: bet only when the jackpot exceeds $1billion, which prompted him to visit the 7-Eleven on April 1. The couple didn't leave the convenience store with a billion dollars, but they did walk away $2million (£1.6million) richer.
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It wasn't until the next day, when he was sifting through his tickets, the man accidentally realized he was a millionaire. “I saw the numbers and I said, ‘No!’” He also found four additional winning tickets worth $4 (£3.20) each, but that clearly didn't matter as much. Adding to the already serendipitous moment, the couple returned to their ticket stack to sift through it once more.
To their shock, a second $1million (£800,000) ticket emerged bringing tears to their eyes. “We had our crying moment,” he said. “Twenty minutes after that, when I put the ticket down, I went back to the other tickets." he said. “It was mind-blowing. I had no idea I doubled it."
“He joked about it,” his wife recalled with a smile. “He said, ‘I still have tickets to go through. What if I have the second million-dollar ticket?”
The partners said they plan to invest the cash. “I never thought I’d be here,” the happy husband said while seated in the Lottery Winner’s Circle room on April 3. “It’s still surreal.”
Their winning tickets matched the initial five numbers of the draw but didn't align with those of the Powerball. The dynamic duo played numbers 19, 24, 40, 42, 56 and the Powerball 13. Despite no new billionaires arising out of the April 1 draw, a ticket did match the $1.33 billion Powerball draw on April 6.
A lucky winner in Oregon matched all the numbers including the ones for the Powerball jackpot. The winner, who also asked not to be identified, made history as they bagged the fourth largest Powerball jackpot.