You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery, but lightning struck twice for one Michigan man who accidentally purchased two lotto tickets with the same numbers. Dearborn Heights, Michigan resident Samir Mazahem walked away with $2 million after mistakenly purchasing an extra ticket.
The 56-year-old said he was saving his numbers for a single $2 lotto ticket in an app when he slipped up and purchased a second ticket. Both tickets were winners, to the tune of a million each.
When Mazahem initially made the mistake, he said he was “a little bummed but didn’t think much about it.” That feeling quickly turned around when he went to check his numbers and found he was a winner twice-over.
“I couldn’t believe it was real," Mazahem told the Associated Press. "It took several days for the reality to set in that my mistake had paid off to the tune of $2 million!”
According to the AP, Mazahem plans to buy a house with his unexpected windfall and sock the rest away for a rainy day.
Mazahem’s luck was the mirror image of a Florida woman who had to forfeit her $1000 lottery winnings after the Post Office in the state capital of Tallahassee lost her ticket. And it’s a sight better than the Florida man (sensing a theme?) who was arrested after trying to claim winnings off a lotto ticket he stole in a robbery. However, he has something in common with the Colorado Powerball player who won twice in one day.
