$250,000 lottery ticket spent three months in man’s wallet

May 1 (UPI) — A Michigan man who found a three-month-old lottery ticket in his wallet decided to check it on his lunch break and discovered he had been carrying around $250,000.

The 57-year-old Kalamazoo man told Michigan Lottery officials he bought a KENO! ticket from the Meijer store on Shaver Road in Portage and placed it in his wallet, where it remained unchecked three months after the Jan. 18 drawing.

The man said he had forgotten about the ticket before stumbling on it while going through his wallet.

“I was on my lunch break from work the other day and found the KENO! ticket in my wallet,” the man said. “I scanned it and it told me to file a claim with the Lottery office, so I called the office and that’s when I found out I’d won $250,000!”

The man said the rest of his workday was difficult to get through.

“Focusing was not an option at work. For the rest of the afternoon I was absent minded, wandering around with my head in the clouds,” he said.

The man visited lottery headquarters on Monday with his winning ticket, which matched 10 of the 22 drawn numbers.

“I’ve had some hard time over the last several years. I lost my job and house when the economy was bad, and I’ve been working hard to get it all back,” he said. “Winning is a relief because I won’t be worrying about living paycheck-to-paycheck any more.”