Someone out there must be kicking themselves.
An employee at a grocery store in Falls Church, Virginia, hadn't meant to buy a Cash4Life ticket -- but he won $7 million after a customer didn't want it.
Michael Donnelly of Woodbridge was ringing up Powerball tickets for customers at the Harris Teeter store in Columbia Pike when he accidentally hit a wrong button, Virginia Lottery officials said. Instead of generating a Powerball ticket, he accidentally generated a Cash4Life ticket.
The customer didn't want it, so Donnelly ended up buying the ticket himself.
That mistake made him a big winner.
Donnelly's ticket matched all six numbers in the Cash4Life drawing Jan. 7, lottery officials said. He had the option to accept $1,000 per day for the rest of his life or take a one-time payout of $7 million before taxes. He chose the cash, and on Friday, he posed with his big check.
"It still hasn't hit me yet," he told lottery officials.
U.S. & World
Donnelly didn't know right away he had won. He checked the ticket days after the drawing when a store customer said she had heard a winning ticket had been sold at the store. He checked the numbers and called his wife.
“If that’s true, you have to come home because I’m about to have a heart attack!” she replied, lottery officials said.
Donnelly is Virginia's first top-prize winner in the Cash4Life game, which is played in six states. The odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 21.8 million.
