A Maryland man who mistakenly purchased two identical tickets for the same Powerball drawing ended up winning two $1 million prizes.
The Annapolis man told Maryland Lottery officials he went to the 7-Eleven on Bestgate Road in Annapolis and utilized the lottery terminal’s replay feature, which scans existing tickets for winners and produces fresh tickets with the same numbers.
The man stated that he did not realize that his stack of tickets to scan had some with identical sets of numbers; therefore, he ended up with some duplicates.
After gamer returned to scan his tickets after learning that 7-Eleven had sold two $1 million winning tickets. He admitted he had duplicates after four of his tickets won $4 apiece.
When he scanned a ticket that matched the first five numbers in the drawing and won $1 million, the man said he was shocked.
The player contacted his wife before scanning the rest of the stack.
“We had our crying moment,” he explained. “Twenty minutes after that, when I put the ticket down, I went back to the other tickets.”
The man’s wife claimed he foretold what happened next.
“He replied, ‘I still have tickets to go through.” What if I had the second million-dollar ticket?” she recalled.
The man realized that he did indeed have the second $1 million ticket.
“It was mind-blowing,” he explained. “I had no idea I doubled it.”
The pair stated that they plan to invest their riches.
