5 Weirdest Lottery Win Stories

We all like to imagine what we would do if we won big in the lottery. For almost all of us, that will never happen since the odds are astronomical. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to think about, though. There have been several people that have won the lottery over the years and didn’t even know it at first, or have had some really roundabout ways of cashing in their winning tickets.

There are a few truly bizarre stories of lottery winners that will have you double and triple-checking your tickets to see if you actually won. These five stories will also make you wonder if you may have won years ago without even knowing.

Valentine’s Day Craziness

In April of 2019, Canadian couple Nicole Pedneault and Roger Larocque became the lucky winners of the $750,000 prize money for a lottery ticket that won the year prior. They mentioned having bought the ticket for Valentine’s Day in 2018 and apparently tucked it away and forgot about it. In April of 2019, their grandson asked for informational books to help with a school project. When Nicole went through the books for her grandson, a ticket fell out of the pages. To their amazement, the ticket was a winner, and even more amazing, the ticket was still valid, but only for two more days. The couple turned in their ticket and collect their winnings. A very happy ending to what could have been an unfortunate situation. 

Aussie Luck

The next story is one you may have heard of before. In 1998, Bill Morgan of Australia was the victim of a horrible car crash, the vehicle almost crushing him. He survived but suffered a heart attack as a result of the crash. He was rushed to the hospital, where they administered a drug that caused an allergic reaction. He died for 14 minutes and was put into a medically induced coma for 12 days after his heart stopped beating. He recovered and with his newfound lease on life, decided to play the lottery after settling into his life with his then-fiancée. He ended up winning a car worth $17,000. Insane luck followed soon after when the local news station covered his story and asked him to reenact the win. When he did, he scratched off a $250,000 winning ticket. Bill Morgan is one lucky guy. 

Chilled Win

A funny story about a man from the UK, whose reaction to winning a $106 million lottery prize went viral on Tik Tok. The audio recording of Andrew Clark’s phone call to the National Lottery line received social media due to his calm demeanor after having won a whopping $106 million prize. Clark is a busy man who tends to let things pile up in his van. Including his lottery tickets. His partner’s niece called and told him to check his tickets after the winning numbers had been announced. Days later he went through the stack of tickets and found a winner. A big winner. His reaction gave viewers a good laugh and was marked as the most British response ever. 

Kind Citizen

Losing lottery tickets seems to be a common theme for most winners. Michael J Weirsky is one of those. The man from New Jersey accidentally left his winning tickets on a local convenience store counter while distracted. A kind man turned the tickets into the store owner and a frantic Michael eventually found his way back to the store to ask if they had seen the tickets. He ended up winning an astounding $273 million. 

Better Late Than Never

Another lucky winner for more reasons than one is Joemel Panisa. He decided to clean his office and when doing so, found a lottery ticket he had tucked away in an envelope the year prior. It turned out to be a $1 million winning ticket and was only days away from becoming invalid in the ultimate bout of good timing.