Heart stopping mistake leads to frantic search for thousands
By Kate Northrop
WILLARD, Ohio — Diving into a dumpster and rummaging around in the trash was absolutely worth it for one Ohio man, who found a winning lottery ticket worth $100,000.
A simple mistake led one Ohio lottery player to take a leap of faith into the dumpster before it was too late, and a $100,000 discovery made it worth the effort (and the smell).
It wasn't clear what was on the anonymous Willard resident's mind when he won, but it was probably a flurry of flustered thoughts that one might typically have when they come across a six-figure prize.
It's possible that the excitement of winning ironically influenced him to throw away his winning ticket by mistake, and time was not on his side. He realized he had to find it before the trash was retrieved.
After rummaging around in the garbage, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief — there was his winning $5 "Bingo Times 25" scratch-off ticket worth $100,000.
He claimed his prize from the Ohio Lottery and took home $73,250 after taxes, not a bad payday for a hunt through the trash.
The anonymous player had purchased the ticket at Circle K on Walton Street in Willard.
Seven more top prizes of $100,000 remain in the $5 "Bingo Times 25" scratch-off game, which launched in December 2023. There are also eight second-tier prizes of $50,000, as well as 14 third-tier prizes of $10,000 left to claim.
The overall odds of winning any prize in the game are 1 in 3.52.
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Good for him.
The headline was kinda deceptive, it wasn't some random dumpster diver that found 100K, it was the purchaser of the ticket who mistakenly threw it away. Lucky for him he found it!
This stinks,lol
But at least it paid off for him
I too thought it was a random person finding luck. I hope he sanitized himself before handing over the ticket.
I think I would have kept that to myself.
As much as I cannot tolerate foul odors or being dirty, I would have made it into that dumpster to get the ticket. Temporary embarrassment due to odor or admission of a mistake in exchange for a $100,000? He is a determined lottery player who continues to take a chance and it paid off. Good for him.
The hard part was finding HIS particular bag of trash in the dumpster. Hopefully it wasn't on the bottom.
Maybe he has a government job and got confused for a moment and thought he was dealing with taxpayer money so he did what comes naturally and threw it in the dumpster.