Wilbur Brown from Oregon bought a lottery ticket on Christmas Eve and soon forgot about it, but he’s now $8.9 million richer after rediscovering it.
Brown purchased a “26 for $25” Oregon Megabucks ticket last year, according to the Oregon Lottery, which allowed him to join 26 consecutive Megabucks drawings. Despite checking after the early drawings, he finally forgot he placed the ticket in his wallet, and it covered draws from December 25, 2021 to February 19, 2022.
“After the first few drawings, I’d check my ticket… Then I just kind of forgot about it and wasn’t checking,” said Brown. In February, he suddenly remembered his ticket and scanned it at a self-check terminal only to be greeted by a message telling him to speak with customer service. When a server scanned, a message popped up that read, “Large Lottery Winner.” Brown had no clue how much he had won, until his friends checked the results and revealed just how large his winnings were.
Brown added that rather than receiving his whole prize at once, he picked the 30-year annuity option so that he could get little over $200,000 per year. The Moose Lodge in Springfield, where he scanned the ticket, was awarded 1% of the prize, totaling $89,00. Michael Scott (not to be confused with Steve Carrell’s character from The Office) commented, “The last couple of years have been a challenge for us.” “Now everyone is buying Megabucks tickets for ’26 for $25.'”