Lottery News

A small mistake made while printing the Mega Millions lottery ticket led an Iowa man to win a whopping $1 million second-tier prize.

Josh Buster of West Burlington is quite sure that a clerk's slip-up is the reason why he won a grand $1 million in the Mega Millions drawing on April 15. The jackpot for Mega Millions drawing on Friday, April 15 was estimated at $20 million, and Buster ensured that he bought his lottery ticket in time for the draw.

He stopped by the local MK Mini Mart on East Mount Pleasant Street in West Burlington, where he asked the store manager for five Mega Millions Quick Picks. At first, the convenience store person just printed one play on a single ticket from the lottery terminal and asked Buster if it was fine by him to print the other four plays on another ticket.

Buster also told the Iowa Lottery, that the hadn't numbers had got changed due to not printing all the five plays on a single ticket, he would not have bagged the grand prize.

The 40-year-old lucky winner recalled, that as usual he got up to go to work early in the morning and opened the lottery app, and scanned his ticket, and as per him he would always keep his tickets in the console of his car to keep a check on them. And as soon as he checked the lottery tickets, he completely freaked out and ran back inside the house. According to him, it was so hard for him to believe what he saw, that one of his Quick Picks had matched five numbers - 4, 17, 20, 46, and 64, just missing the Mega Ball 23 for the drawing held on April 15.

Had he matched the Mega Ball number, Josh Buster would have to split the $20 million jackpot with another winner from Tennessee. The lump-sum cash value for this prize was approximately $11.9 million.

As he further recalled, not sure that his luck could shine so bright, Butler earlier thought it was a mistake and there might be some error. So he Googled the lottery numbers to make sure that he had the right ones and of course, he did have all of them right! It looked so surreal to him that he said, " I'm just waiting to wake up from a dream". But that was no dream to him, as soon as he visited the Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive on Monday to collect his $1 million Mega Millions lotto prize, the reality struck him right.

Butler is one of the two players who won at least $1 million prizes in Iowa this year. The grand lottery prize winner told that he plans to pay off his car and the mortgage on his mother's house. Once all of that is sorted, he'll save the rest of the money for his retirement.

After federal and state tax deductions the $1 million prize comes out to be $240,000 and $50,000, respectively, so the winner will walk home with $710,000 in net winnings. Buster said that he plays the lottery quite regularly, but it never crossed his mind that he would win this big ever in his lifetime.

The MK Mini Mart, from whom the winning ticket was purchased, will receive a $1000 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling the $1 million winning ticket. As we speak, the current Mega Millions jackpot sits at $22 million, scheduled to draw on Friday, April 22nd, 2022.

So, if you are thinking to bag the next grand lotto prize, pick your winning lottery numbers using our time-tested lottery winning tools! And see yourself shining our next post as a winner!

All the best!