Oblivious man finds $1M lottery ticket he kept for four months while cleaning out wallet

An oblivious man from Connecticut was shocked to find that he had won the top prize of USD $1 million when he found an old Powerball ticket he bought four months ago when he was cleaning out his wallet.

Charles Dudley from the affluent town of Redding told Connecticut Lottery officials that he bought the ticket on a whim in May:

“I had stopped for ice cream at the [Georgetown] Shell station that day. While I was there, I got a Powerball Quick Pick, put it in my wallet, and then forgot about it.”

It wasn’t until this week that Dudley discovered the ticket tucked away in his wallet, in between some old receipts. He was stunned to find that he had purchased the winning ticket when he looked up the numbers online:

“I checked the winning numbers on the lottery’s website and couldn’t believe it. I checked it over and over. The numbers were a match. It didn’t feel real, though, until I checked the location of where the ticket was sold. It was where I bought my ticket.”

It was quite fortunate that Dudley found the forgotten ticket when he did. If he had chanced upon the ticket just 23 days later, the ticket would have expired.