The importance of checking your lottery tickets. Previous winners of the lottery have forgotten to check the numbers.
The importance of checking your lottery tickets
Did you know that you have nearly a 20,000 times higher chance of being struck by lightning than of winning the national lottery? Okay, maybe you did not know that, but you surely know that the odds of winning a national lottery are not great.
Let’s just say you need to be extremely lucky. However, if you still decide to give luck a shot and buy a lottery ticket, then the least you can do is at least check the ticket to see if you won. Sounds like common sense, right?
You would be surprised how many people don’t check their tickets.
Here are a couple of stories that are face-palm-worthy!
The papers and the web always publish the happy stories of the jackpot winners that have gone from rags to riches overnight.
However, seldom do you hear about people that didn’t know they won or showed up too late to collect their millions in prize money, and some that lost their winning tickets. These guys were extremely lucky and then brought ill luck upon themselves.
These two accounts will make sure you never let something like this happen to you, and it will also make you cringe.
The light bulb – four years too late
This first account is so absurd that there is no way it could have been scripted. A man from Sydney, Robert Clemett, supposedly realized that he had won a lottery that had transpired four years ago! So, how did he come to this realization all of a sudden?
Clemett claims he was actually watching a TV show based on unclaimed lottery jackpots and on the show they actually spoke about a lottery from Sep 23rd, 1997 where no one came forward with the winning ticket.
Clemett not only remembered that he had actually taken part in this lottery, but also that he had the winning numbers.
Clemett reached out in desperation to the lottery multiple times, but in vain since he says he had misplaced the ticket. His legal campaign to claim his jackpot did not fare well given the lack of evidence to back up his claims.
An unlucky winner from Connecticut
You really need to have lady luck on your side to win the lottery, right? Well, this incident will make you think twice about that.
Clarence Jackson played the lottery every week. One particular ticket that he purchased on a Friday in 1995 turned out to be the winning ticket. But instead of bringing him joy and immense wealth, all it would bring him is decades of despair and desperation.
Jackson’s sister was watching the news about how the winner had not come forward to claim the prize and it was the last day to do so. Her gut told her to scrummage through the lottery tickets at their house, and she quickly realized that they had the winning ticket!
However, Jackson now had to race against time, it was already 11:15 pm and the deadline to collect the prize would come to an end in 45 mins. Despite having played the lottery for years, he was not aware that all he had to do was go to any store and just validate the ticket.
He assumed he would have to go to the lottery office, but never made it there in time. Thus, began legal efforts that lasted nearly two decades, but Jackson and his family never got a penny.