When you look at the television, or you check your state lottery website, you’ll see the most recent lottery winners standing there smiling and holding a gigantic check. The giant check indicates how much they won. It just seems normal. You glance at the person and say, “You Lucky S.O.B,” and then you go off and continue to wait for it to be your turn to hoist a large (literally and figuratively) check.
Although this scene seems normal, some of the stories about how those lottery winners ended up standing there are anything but. As a matter of fact, some of these lottery winner stories are so hilarious, outrageous, or just flat-out unbelievable, you may think I’m making this up. Let’s take a look at a few crazy but true lottery winner stories.
First, we have an 18-year-old British school girl who worked as a waitress earning the British equivalent of $5.50 per hour. She discovered that she won the Euromillions, a jackpot totaling the British equivalent of $8.1 million. Upon making this discovery, she got so worked up that she worked up her dog as well. The excited canine then bit her squarely on the butt.
But that isn’t the unusual part. Here’s the unusual part: out of fear of losing her winning ticket she decided there was only one place she could keep it safe until she cashed it in. She stuffed it in her bra and walked around with it “securely” until she was able to claim her winnings.
Fun Fact: A poll suggested that more than 30% of women lottery winners carry their winning tickets around with them somewhere in their undies. Maybe it’s not so unusual after all.
Next, we have a man’s story that’s even stranger. This Australian truck driver was killed after suffering a heart attack after being crushed in an accident. He was clinically dead for 14 minutes. He was then put into a medically induced coma for 12 days, from which he awoke perfectly fine.
This isn’t the bizarre part. He decided to buy a scratch-off lottery ticket, on which he ended up winning a car valued at $17,000. Knowing the man’s near-death story, the local news asked him to re-enact the scene where he went in and bought the ticket. He agreed to do so. When he went in and bought another scratch-off, this one ended up being a $170,000 winning ticket. Why not? You only live twice, right?
A Massachusetts man waited until the day before his ticket was to expire before he claimed his prize. He heard reports that a Powerball prize of $500,000 (4 numbers plus the Powerball number) was won at a location where he normally plays the lottery. After checking his ticket and with one day to spare, he showed up to claim the prize with his dog. And yes, his dog is in the photo with him as he shows off his check.
And finally, my favorite story: A man living on the island of Jamaica discovered that he was the sole winner of a $1.2 million jackpot. The man was identified as A. Campbell. A. Campbell didn’t want anybody to who he was, so he went to great lengths to hide his identity.
When he showed up at the Spanish Court Hotel in Kingston to pick up his winnings, he was wearing the infamous “Scream” mask to hide his face. Yes, he was allowed to keep the mask on the whole time, and he posed for photos holding his large novelty check still donning the Scream mask. Hilarious.