Sunnyside construction worker nearly threw out his $2.7 million Lotto ticket

A Yakima Valley man’s retirement prospects just got brighter after winning $2.7 million from Lotto — but it all nearly went into the trash.

The construction worker dropped by the Sunnyside Safeway where he bought his ticket to scan it to see if he was a winner.

“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 man in the Lotto office news release.

“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.”

It turned out to be a big winner. But he didn’t notice how big.

The store clerk told the man who has lived in the Yakima Valley for 25 years that for any winnings over $600 he’d have to go to the Yakima Regional Office of the Washington Lottery to collect the money.

Instead, he called his wife of 30 years to tell her they’d won some money and continued on to work.

It was only when he got home that night that he looked up the winning numbers and realized they’d won $2.7 million.

“This certainly will make our retirement years quite a bit easier,” he said. “Thank goodness I did that double-take and scanned the ticket again.”

This story was originally published May 7, 2021 at 10:04 AM.