A stranger returned his lost lottery tickets. Then he won $273 million
An unemployed New Jersey man won a $273 million (U.S.) Mega Millions lottery jackpot last week after a stranger found and returned the winning ticket that he had left behind on a store counter.
The man, Michael J. Weirsky, told reporters Thursday that he lost two tickets immediately after he bought them at a QuickChek in Phillipsburg, N.J., on the day before the lottery drawing.
He said it was the result of “the typical cellphone deal.”
“I was paying more attention to my cellphone,” he said at a news conference.
“I put the tickets down to put my money away, then I did something with my phone and just walked away.” Weirsky had spent hours searching for the tickets when he got to his home in Alpha, N.J., near the Pennsylvania border.
He was convinced they must have gotten lost there, and it was not until the next day that he decided to ask a clerk at the store if anyone had seen them.
The clerk said someone had turned them in.
Then she quizzed him on what tickets he had bought before handing them over, he said. The lottery drawing was that night.
“I was very thankful there was an honest person out there because I thought it was gone,” he said.
But Weirsky, who said he spends $20 a week on quickpick lottery tickets, said he did not realize he had the winning ticket until two days later.
He said a friend of his mother’s called to say she thought a mutual friend of theirs had hit the jackpot. That man bought his ticket at the same store Weirsky did, and had been standing right in front of him when he did it. Weirsky called to ask if he had won. When the man said he had not, Weirsky decided to check his own tickets using the lottery app on his phone. Then he turned to his mother in shock.
“I put the phone down, I put the ticket down, I sat there for a second — I said to my mother, ‘Hey, that just said I was the jackpot winner,’ ” he said. “And she’s like, ‘What’s that mean?’ ”
“I said, ‘I won $273 million,’ ” he told her. “And she was like, ‘Get the hell out of here.’ ” So, for a while, he did. “I just put the ticket back down, watched TV for about another half-hour. And I just got up and ran upstairs, got dressed and I said, ‘I’ve got to go find out if it’s real,’ ” he said.
New Jersey Lottery said in a statement that Weirsky “ventured out in a snowstorm” to scan the ticket at a nearby store. The scan also said he was the winner.
Weirsky said the lottery win would change everything for him.
He had been unemployed for 15 years, he said, living as a stayat-home husband and moving often for his ex-wife’s job.
Their marriage ended in October. He said he now plans to take his time looking for work. He may start a business, he said, or work part time helping a friend who works as a handyman.
“I am just going to sit back and enjoy it,” Weirsky said.
He said he planned to take his winnings as a $162.5 million lump sum rather than in installments. His first move will be to buy a new pickup truck, he said, and his next will be to listen to his lawyer.
“After that, I am basically locked into what my lawyer and other people that I got working for me tell me I can do,” he said. “But after they tell me I can go crazy, I am going to take a family vacation and take everybody with us.”
James Carey, acting executive director of the New Jersey Lottery, said Weirsky was lucky that someone had returned the winning lottery ticket to the store. (The store was lucky, too: It got a $30,000 prize for selling the winning ticket.)