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Single mother's simple error earns her $14 million lottery prize
Published January 13, 2015
At the intersection of Fate and Lotto, Thuan Le made a very fortunate error.
The California single mother of four is thanking her lucky stars after mistakenly slipping an extra dollar into the self-service Lotto machine at her local CVS store in Mission Viejo.
That superfluous dollar wound up getting Le the SuperLotto Plus ticket holding the five winning numbers -- 5, 33, 25, 46, 32 -- plus the Mega number, 26, selected randomly in the April 24drawing.
In all, Le won a $14 million jackpot.
“Thuan Le is a hardworking single mother of four sons,” according to a release from the California Lottery.
“She is also very excitable. In fact, when she ran her SuperLotto Plus ticket through the terminal and realized she had won a $14 million jackpot, she ran screaming out of the store!”
Le reportedly plans to buy a house, travel, and visit her parents in Vietnam with the proceeds.
According to the lottery website, Le and a friend would normally go together and buy their lottery tickets at the same time. But on that fateful April day, Le went by herself to purchase her usual $4 worth of POWERBALL® and $1 in SuperLotto Plus.
“She accidentally put $6 in the self-service terminal and bought her tickets,” the lottery reported. “When she realized she still had $1 in credit, she thought, ‘I might as well get another SuperLotto Plus ticket.’ That sixth ticket was the winner.”
It had been approximately a month – and eight unsuccessful drawings -- since anyone picked all six numbers to win the SuperLotto Plus jackpot when Le won the grand prize, according to a local Patch.com website.
The odds of winning are about 1 in 42 million, according to the California lottery.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/single-mothers-simple-error-earns-her-14-million-lottery-prize