Lottery News

A Tennessee lottery player got the chance of becoming a millionaire overnight, but almost immediately lost his newfound wealth the next day after he misplaced his lottery ticket.

All his hopes seemed lost when the winning Tennessee lottery ticket worth $1,178,746 was thought to be gone, rolling around in the dirt. But what seemed miraculous, that it was recovered by its rightful owner after it lay untouched in a parking lot for an hour.

Last Wednesday, Nick Slatten of Sparta, spent the day laying tile in Smithville and decided to stop at the nearby Village Market convenience on North Congress Boulevard before moving towards home. He picked up a lottery ticket for that night's Tennessee Cash Drawing and a beverage.

The next morning on March 10, he checked the results for the drawing and to his utter surprise, he matched all the numbers - 2, 4, 23, 27, 34, and Cash Ball number 2 on his ticket, yielding a total of $1.18 million jackpot.

Stallen reported the official lottery that he was extremely stunned looking at the numbers. He just couldn't believe and express his feelings over this grand win.

After learning about the grand win, he rushed to his fiancee Michelle's workplace in Sparta to share this exciting news. After that, he visited O'Reilly's Auto Parts store on West Bockman Way to buy a car part with his brother, followed by lunch.

Soon Slatten realized that his million-dollar ticket was missing. He recalled that he just couldn't find it anywhere. According to him, the ticket could be anywhere. It was a very windy day, so it was possible for the ticket to be sailing through the air and could possibly be lost. And the most tragic part, the ticket was Not Signed, which means anyone could encash it as a winner and become a millionaire.

But Slatten was not at ready to part with his winning ticket, and quickly started to retrace his steps, which eventually brought him back to the parking lot of O'Reilly Auto Parts. And there he found his winning ticket lying on the ground completely untouched. He quickly grabbed it and exclaimed, "it's a million-dollar ticket and someone has stopped over it".

As per his future plans, Slatten and his fiancee will continue to work, plan and intend to buy a home and expensive cars. They are even planning to invest a portion of the prize as they aim to live life with not a whole of worries.