Waste workers help winner find binned €1m lottery ticket in Italy
The player only realised he binned the life-changing ticket after family told him the numbers he played for years had been drawn.
An Italian lottery player who accidentally discarded a €1 million winning ticket may have been the most fortunate individual in the country, as refuse workers recovered the lost slip. The anonymous player discarded the ticket at a shop in Bitonto, southern Italy, after confirming their numbers and being informed that the ticket was not payable.
The player only discovered the mistake after a relative noticed their consistently played numbers had been drawn. This prompted a two-day search through a large pile of waste collected by a bin lorry, as reported by the head of the refuse company, Roberto Nicola Toscano, to the Italian news agency Ansa. Toscano described the situation as "nothing short of miraculous."
The player's family eventually realized their mistake when they identified their favorite numbers - 2, 4, 8, 10, and 51 - among the drawn numbers. The refuse company, SANB, located the bin lorry before it was compacted for disposal, as the search took place on a Sunday to avoid the waste being sent to a landfill. The search concluded after two days when a waste worker found the ticket in a bag filled with damaged and destroyed tickets.
Toscano confirmed that the recovery operation would be billed to the winner, who had previously agreed to cover the expenses. Toscano, who could not disclose the winner's identity, mentioned that his colleagues won €50 by chance after purchasing a scratch card as part of the lighthearted search.
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