A Columbus convenience store mix-up turned into a $50,834 payday for an Ohio truck driver after he bought two identical Pick 5 tickets and both hit in the midday drawing.
The driver stopped on April 29 at Airport Duchess #1250 in Columbus and bought a $1 Pick 5 ticket. A clerk accidentally misplaced the first ticket after printing it and issued him another one. The original ticket was later found, and the driver decided to keep both. When the numbers 4-4-5-7-8 were drawn in the midday Pick 5 drawing, both tickets matched in straight play, producing two $25,000 wins. Each ticket also carried a 60-way box play that added $417, bringing the total prize to $50,834.
The Ohio Lottery said the odds of winning a straight Pick 5 bet are 1 in 100,000. After mandatory state and federal tax withholdings totaling 26.75%, the winner will take home $37,235.90. He said the numbers came from his work ID at a new job and told lottery officials the win was meant to be.
The timing made the difference. If the clerk had not misplaced the first ticket, the truck driver would have held just one winning slip instead of two, and the unusual store error became the reason the prize doubled. The lottery also said the win reflected both the straight-play payout and the box-play payout attached to each ticket, a combination that lifted the total well above the headline number.
He plans to use the money to invest in his family’s landscaping business, turning a hurried stop for one ticket into a windfall that reaches far beyond a Columbus counter.
