A lottery player in southern Italy has beaten astronomical odds twice over: first by winning €1 million (£857,158), and then by retrieving the winning ticket from a mountain of rubbish after mistakenly throwing it away. The anonymous winner, who bought the ticket at a shop in Bitonto, in the Puglia region, initially believed the ticket was worthless because the shop told them it was “non-payable.” In fact, the phrase meant the winnings were too large for the shop to process, not that the ticket had lost.
How the ticket was recovered
The winner only realised their mistake after a relative pointed out that the numbers on the discarded ticket—2, 4, 8, 10, and 51—were their regular lucky numbers, which had indeed matched the winning combination. The player then traced the ticket to a lorry that had transported the rubbish to a waste site. Waste workers spent two days sifting through the enormous heap before finally locating the precious slip of paper on a Tuesday.
Nicola Roberto Toscano, head of waste management firm North Bari Environmental Services (SANB), explained that the ticket was found in a plastic bag along with other discarded tickets. He noted that had the waste been collected on a weekday, it would have been sent to landfill, making recovery impossible. “Luckily it was a Sunday, otherwise the load would have already ended up in landfill,” he said.
Celebration and costs
To mark the find, Mr. Toscano and his colleagues bought a scratch card and won £50. He shared the story on Facebook, writing: “It is often said that waste can be a resource. Well.. there are those that have decided to take this so literally.”
Despite the windfall, the winner will have to cover the cost of the recovery operation. The incident highlights the broader issue of unclaimed lottery winnings; in the UK, for instance, the National Lottery recently appealed for winners of two £1 million Lotto tickets in Cheshire East and Tameside.
