A South Carolina man is counting his lucky stars after almost making a very expensive mistake when he threw away his winning $100,000 lottery ticket before realizing he had actually won.
The incident happened when the unnamed man purchased a Palmetto Cash 5 ticket from a BP gas station in Newberry, South Carolina, and, when checking the numbers of the lottery results, saw that he had lost and threw his ticket in the trash.
The only problem is that he had actually won $100,000.
“I checked the results for the day before,” the man told the South Carolina Education Lottery according to a statement.
His Palmetto Cash 5 ticket had actually matched all five numbers drawn on Friday, Jan. 24 and he only realized it when he was sipping his coffee and happened to look over the results again when he realized the horrific mistake.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said to the South Carolina Education Lottery.
He managed to retrieve the ticket and turn it in to collect his winnings.
The winner said that he now plans to give the money to charity and set up a college fund for his grandchildren.
The BP gas station that sold the ticket received a commission of $1,000 for selling the winning ticket.
The odds of winning $100,000 playing Palmetto Cash 5 are 1 in 501,942, which, according to the Independent, is slightly more likely than you winning a gold medal in the Olympics or being crushed to death by a meteor.
In fact, you are actually an estimated 50 times more likely to win an Oscar, statistically, than you are hitting the $100,000 jackpot.
