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.
A man in southern Italy accidentally discarded a €1 million lottery ticket in a shop, believing it to be non-payable. The ticket was only recognized as a winner when a family member pointed out the winning numbers he frequently chose had been drawn. This led to a two-day search of the waste collected by a bin lorry. Roberto Nicola Toscano, head of the local refuse company, explained that the non-payable message appears when the prize exceeds what can be paid out by the store.
The truck was retrieved before the waste could be compacted for disposal, as it was a Sunday. The winning ticket was discovered after a thorough search, cheered at as if won by the workers themselves. The winner, who had earlier pledged to cover the search costs, will now face a bill for the recovery operation. Toscano, while not disclosing the winner's identity, mentioned that his colleagues even won €50 from a joke scratch card, describing the event as "nothing short of miraculous."
Written by urgent.news from BBC World's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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