In 2003 Stephen Cooke was feeling lucky so he decided to play that week’s Mega Millions draw that had a jackpot sitting at a staggeringly mouth-watering $70 million.
Purchasing a few tickets using significant dates for numbers Cooke casually obtained his entries in the normal way must of us would use to pick our lotto balls.
Stephen Cooke made a lottery mistake worth $23 million
However, Cooke was not so annoyed because when the draw took place Stephen was very excited when the first ticket he checked had a winning line with all the lottery numbers on it.
To say Cooke was overjoyed would be an understatement.
Making his way to the claim office in Atlanta Cooke learned that there had been 3 winners thus netting him a hue $23.3 million prize.
Not Once But Twice
However, the lottery officials, being aware of the time and date that the winning tickets had been purchased, were curious and started to ask Cooke a lot of questions about where and when he had bought his tickets.
Cooke's total winnings was $46 million...all due to his initial oversight
It wasn’t until he was informed that 2 winning tickets had been purchased in quick succession at the same store, literally seconds apart, that he started to understand their line of questioning.
Tickets that are printed off in such quick succession are almost certainly bought by the same person as it takes time to print the ticket and register the sale for two separate players. Therefore multiple tickets bought seconds apart usually indicate they belong to the same player.
The lottery officials were sure that Stephen had the other winning ticket.
In the strictest secrecy a Georgia Lottery security guard travelled with Cooke o his home so that he could retrieve his other 2 tickets in order to ascertain if one of them was also a winner.
It was then that Cooke discovered his initial mistake which netted him another $23.3 million prize for a grand prize total of $46.6 million.
What a lucky guy.
