Newspaper Misprint Leads Colo. Couple to Think They Won $4.3M Lottery

Published January 13, 2015

PUEBLO, Colorado -- A Colorado couple were not $4.3 million richer Tuesday -- but for a while over the weekend they thought they were.

A misprint in their local newspaper, the Pueblo Chieftain, led Jim and Dorothy Sprague to think Sunday they had the winning ticket in the Colorado lottery.

After an hour of utter joy, the couple rang their children to share their good news -- and then found they were wrong because the newspaper had printed Friday's numbers instead of those from Saturday's Colorado Lottery by mistake.

"[It was] a case of going from rags to riches and back to rags again," Jim Sprague told KOAA-TV.

The newspaper published a retraction in Monday's paper, faulting the error on "misinformation and an oversight."

And Jim Sprague said he's happy to leave the matter there -- although he still hopes to find the right lottery numbers "one of these days."

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/us/newspaper-misprint-leads-colo-couple-to-think-they-won-4-3m-lottery