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from the what-if-it-were-in-the-Eastern-part-of-the-state dept.
Man wins $7 million in lottery after buying every single ticket:
Kevin Clark, from Candler in North Carolina, had a hunch that the top $US5 million ($A7 million) prize in the Mega Cash scratch-off game would be won in the western part of the state.
So he came up with an unusual strategy to ensure he got his hands on the lucky ticket – by travelling from store to store and buying every ticket he could find.
Mr Clark spent four hours on his quest to purchase every $20 Mega Cash scratchie ticket he came across in around 40 different stores.
And while it is not known how much he spent in total, it’s safe to say he came out on top after a ticket he bought from a Stop N Go outlet in Swannanoa, North Carolina ended up being the winner.
[...] In the end he decided to pocket a $US3 million ($A4.2 million) lump sum instead of taking the $US5 million as an annuity of $US250,000 ($A350,267) per year for two decades.
After taxes, he was left with a total cash prize of around $US2.1 million ($A2.94 million).
“I had a real good feeling it was going to be in the western part of the state,” Mr Clark said, according to the NC Education Lottery.
However, he said he was still stunned when his tactic paid off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @10:57PM
I'll occasionally buy a ticket if the prize is above a certain point, but in general, It's far better to put the money into some sort of an investment. These days there are fintech outfits that will take as little as $10 and invest it in a small portion of stocks and bonds. Put $5 a week in and over time that gets to be a decent amount of money, certainly far more than you'd be likely to win.
What's more, when people do win, they tend to wind up bankrupt before too long because they didn't have finance management skills before winning the lottery and they still don't after striking it big.