Store Returns $1 Million Lotto Ticket To Woman Who Threw It Away

A Springfield, Massachusetts woman recently got lucky twice. First when she won a $1 million prize on a lottery ticket, and then again when the store owners returned it to her after she threw it away.

Lea Rose Fiega bought the $30 “Diamond Millions” instant game on March 30 at Lucky Stop in Southwick on her lunch break. After scratching the ticket and thinking it was a dud, she handed it back to be thrown away. 

“She was scratching one day and gave the ticket back to my mom to throw out,” Abhi Shah, whose family owns the shop, told MassLive.

After sitting in a pile for 10 days, Shah noticed the ticket wasn’t wholly scratched off. He finished it himself and realized it was a winner. 

“One evening, I was going through the tickets from the trash and found out that she didn’t scratch the number,” Shah told WWLP-TV. “I scratched the number, and it was $1 million underneath the ticket.”

A regular at the store, the Shah’s knew the ticket belonged to Fiega. Shah went to see Fiega at work and asked her to come to see his parents. When she came in, Maunish Shah handed her the winning ticket, and she began to cry.

Lucky Stop gets a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning lottery ticket, and Fiega said she gave them an additional reward. She told ABC News she’s saving the rest for retirement.