Man hits lottery jackpot day after just missing big win by one number
What a difference a day makes.
A Michigan man who recently won nearly $800,000 in the state's Fantasy 5 lottery daily drawing also won $100 the previous day playing the same game, missing the jackpot by one number.
The man, who chose to remain anonymous, won the July 27 Fantasy 5 jackpot from the Michigan Lottery, according to an Aug. 8 news release on the lottery's website.
His winning numbers of 2-5-17-21-30 netted him the jackpot of $795,905. The day before, he matched four numbers to win $100.
FILE - Marking numbers on a lottery ticket. Getty Images
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"I always buy Fantasy 5 tickets if the jackpot is over $250,000," said the man, who lives in Macomb County. "I usually buy my tickets in-store, but the night of the drawing I realized I’d forgotten to buy some, so I logged onto MichiganLottery.com and bought two."
One of those tickets turned out to be the big winner, but the man said he initially did not know how much.
"After the drawing, I saw an email from the lottery that said I had won $1 in the drawing. I thought that was all I’d won, until another email came through telling me to log into my account to claim my prize," he told the lottery.
After logging on, the man saw that he had actually won the jackpot.
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"My first thought was that it was a scam," he said. "Now that I am at the lottery office claiming my prize, it’s starting to hit me that this is real."
The man's jackpot win was only the latest in what had been a lucky week of drawings, he said.
The day before, he had matched four out of the five numbers, winning the game's second prize of $100.
"What’s crazy is the night before I matched four out of five numbers on my Fantasy 5 ticket and thought, ‘I was so close!’" he said.
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"I was excited to win $100 but bummed that I was one number off a large jackpot prize."
The next night, he won the jackpot, something he "never could have imagined."
The man said that he plans to invest his winnings.
Fantasy 5 is drawn daily at 7:29 p.m., according to the lottery's website. Each ticket costs $1, and for an additional dollar, players can add multipliers and earn second chances to win.
The jackpot resets to $100,000 after each jackpot win.