Clerk Sells Wrong Lottery Ticket, Customer Wins $381K In Powerball

Many years ago, I had a job that included selling lottery tickets. Sometimes I’d make a mistake, maybe printing out a quick-pick when the customer wanted to dictate numbers to me, or printing off a Win 4 ticket instead of a Take Five. “That’s okay,” some customers would say. “Maybe it was a lucky mistake. I’ll buy that one.” This never translated to big payouts for my customers, but won a convenience store customer in California $380,774.

How does that happen? The winner, a regular customer at a 7-Eleven store, asked for two tickets for the multi-state Mega Millions drawing. Instead, the store clerk explained to the Los Angeles Times that he pressed the wrong button and printed off a single $2 ticket for another multi-state lottery game, Powerball. The customer graciously declared the incorrect ticket to be a lucky one, and bought it instead. It turned out to have every number except the titular Powerball, winning him the second prize in that lottery.

The winner told lottery officials that he plans to build an addition to his house with the money. He has continued to stop by the 7-Eleven store where he purchased the winning ticket to buy his daily tickets.

Regular customer at Burbank 7-Eleven wins $380K after clerk accidentally sells him winning lotto ticket [LA Times]