Yakima Construction Worker Wins $2.7 Million Lotto Prize
A Yakima Valley construction worker is celebrating a big win. The Sunnyside man is the winner of the May 1 Washington Lotto prize of $2.7 million. A press release from the Washington Lotto says he didn't know he had the winning ticket until the morning after the drawing. He stopped at the Sunnyside Safeway for a soda and checked his ticket at the lotto machine.
“When you win a few bucks, the machine displays a message that asks if you want to reinvest your winnings and buy a new ticket, and when you do, you click ‘OK’ on the screen,” said the 25-year resident of the area. “So, I just clicked ‘OK’ and almost tossed the ticket in the trash…but then I thought that the screen had looked a little different, so I scanned it again and it said ‘Woo hoo!’ and told me to contact a Lottery office.”
The press release says the store cashier told him that prizes of $600 or more need to be claimed at the Lottery office. so he called his wife of 30 years on his way to work and said “Well, we won more than $600, so that’s cool. See you after work.”
It was only when he got home that night that he looked up the winning numbers and realized that he’d won $2.7 million.
“This certainly will make our retirement years quite a bit easier,” added the winner. “Thank goodness I did that double-take and scanned the ticket again.”
On Wednesday, the winner and his wife traveled to the Yakima Regional Office of Washington’s Lottery, which had re-opened that very day after being closed for nearly a year due to the pandemic, and claimed the big prize.
The winning ticket was sold at the Safeway store located at 613 S 6th St in Sunnyside.