The store manager who sold him the lottery ticket showed incredible kindness to a homeless man who won $1,000,000
After winning the lottery last week, a homeless man hit the jackpot in more ways than one when he hit the jackpot on more than one level.
The man wasted no time when he purchased a California Lottery scratch card at Sandy’s Deli-Liquor in San Luis Obispo and immediately found out whether he had won.
After scratching off his lotto ticket—a Red 777 Scratcher—he discovered he had won a substantial amount of money. At first, this homeless man thought he had bagged $100,000, but Wilson Samaan, the store’s owner, explained that it was $1,000,000.
Undoubtedly, the man who had won the lottery was a loyal customer of Wilson’s and had been frequenting his store for over a decade. Due to his rapport with him, Wilson sometimes got him to watch the front of the store if he had to work in the back.
The guy, whose name has not yet been released, recalled what happened when he scratched the card; Wilson told KSBY: “He came to the store, scratched it, and then he was like, ‘oh my god, is that real? Wilson, can you come and see it for yourself?'”
“My first thought was to take the ticket out of his hand and take it up to the machine, so I grabbed it and put it there. He was saying, ‘Man, I don’t have to be homeless anymore!’ I was saying, ‘Man, you hit the jackpot!’ ‘He’s saying, ‘$100,000’ and I’m saying, ‘That’s actually $1 million. Congratulations, brother.’ Therefore, we both gave each other high fives…”
Wilson did more than confirm the winning ticket; however, he made arrangements for his customer to be driven to the California Lottery’s office in Fresno in the days that followed so that he would not have to mail his million-dollar-winning ticket in the mail.
“I drove him to Fresno on Wednesday because he asked, ‘Do I want to mail it?’ I told him, ‘That’s a million-dollar ticket. I’ll drive you.”
In his own words, he described the money as ‘life-changing’ and hoped to use it to pay a down payment on a house, buy a car, and then invest or save the remaining money.
According to Carolyn Becker, a spokesperson for the California State Lottery, it may be some time before the man receives his money, as it may take a while before he gets it.
“When it comes to a million-dollar ticket like this, the person who comes forward can expect an extensive vetting process,” she said. We give away a lot of prize money at the CA lottery, as you can imagine, and we are pleased to be able to do so, but we want to be sure that we are giving it to the right person, so we want to make sure that it goes to the right person.”