Winning the lottery once is a long shot, but winning the lottery twice? That’s impossible.
Until now.
That’s right, Kenneth J. Stokes of Norwood, Mass, won the same lottery twice for a grand total payout of $546,000.
How in the blank did he do that, you ask?
Apparently, while playing the lotto on Monday (October 20), he forgot that he had been gifted a season pass to the Massachusetts State Lottery Lucky for Life drawing by his family and bought a second ticket with the exact same lucky numbers as the season pass ticket.
“The representative called the individual who was the owner of the season ticket and informed him of that and then he was obviously elated to find out that he had won on that ticket,” Massachusetts State Lottery director of communications Christian Teja told ABC News.
“They hung up and he realized that he had purchased the same ticket on his own for that same drawing. During the phone call when they had spoken, the representative had mentioned there was another winner form Norwood. He called back and it all came together when he was like, ‘I’m that guy in Norwood.’”
Talk about having a lucky day. The odds of Stokes’ lottery double dip is a whopping one in 9.7 trillion.
Stokes, who plans to use his winnings to pay his son’s tuition, pay off his daughter’s car and take his family on vacation, opted for the one-time cash payment ($390,000 pre-tax, $273,000 after tax) instead of the $25,000 per year for 20 year payout. That $273,000 was doubled, though, because of his two winning tickets.
“I saw him yesterday. He was certainly in a good mood with a big smile on his face, as you can imagine,” Teja said. “He’s still somewhat in disbelief but very appreciate of his good fortune.”
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