Man Realizes He Won $8.9 Million After Checking Lottery Ticket He Purchased in December

A man in Oregon is now 8.9 million dollars richer after he remembered to check a lottery ticket he purchased on Christmas Eve.

Wilbur Brown purchased a “26 for $25” Oregon Megabucks ticket last year, which entered him into 26 consecutive Megabucks drawings. The lucky ticket covered drawings from Dec. 25, 2021, to Feb. 19, and eventually, he forgot about the ticket.

“After the first few drawings, I’d check my ticket… Then I just kind of forgot about it and wasn’t checking,” Brown recalled.

In February, he suddenly remembered to check the ticket and scanned it at a self-check terminal and got a message telling him to speak with customer service.

When a server scanned the ticket, a message alerted them that he was a “Large Lottery Winner.”

Brown had no clue how much the jackpot was until his friends checked the results and revealed just how large his winnings were.

Brown chose the 30-year annuity option to receive $200,000 payouts each year, and the venue where he scanned the ticket also received 1 percent of the jackpot for a total of $89,000.

“The last couple of years have been a challenge for us,” Michael Scott, the manager of The Moose Lodge in Springfield said. “Now everyone is buying the ‘26 for $25’ Megabucks tickets.”