Lottery winner surprised ticket worth $250,000

Feb 14, 2008, 4:31 pm (9 comments)

Mega Millions

Donald Ertman got a little agitated when he found out he'd have to make the 150-mile trip to Lansing to collect his lottery winnings. All that for $150, he complained.

Then the owner of the store that sold Ertman the $1 Mega Millions ticket set him straight: It was worth not $150, but a cool quarter of a million.

"I didn't believe him — not at first," Ertman told The Bay City Times.

The 71-year-old laid-off factory worker bought the ticket in late December at the Bad Axe Party Store & BP Gas Station, and walked around with it for six days without realizing it was worth $250,000.

He must have written down the numbers wrong when he saw them on TV, he said.

Ertman was speechless when store owner Eli Kabban told him what he really had, and his wife, Rosalie "Penny" Ertman, broke down in tears of joy when she learned the news.

"We're the typical poor senior citizens, and our income from Social Security is not a lot," she said.

The Ertmans, who live in Sanilac County's Minden Township in Michigan's Thumb, said they spend about $7 per week on lottery tickets. They remained anonymous until Monday.

The couple are investing the money, and Donald Ertman also said he plans to buy his wife a new car and spend some of the money making home improvements.

And yes, they bought a few tickets for Tuesday's Mega Millions game, with an expected jackpot of $150 million.

"Now you see," Donald Ertman said, "that's worth a buck."

The current jackpot in the Mega Millions lottery game is $179 million.  The drawing will be held Friday night at 11:00 PM Eastern Time.  Results will be posted at www.usamega.com.

AP

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JackpotWanna's avatarJackpotWanna

WOW~ $1 = $250,000 WTG!

VERY LUCKY!

ThatScaryChick's avatarThatScaryChick

Congrats to him. He was lucky that he got an honest store clerk to tell him that he won a lot more then $150.

Litebets27's avatarLitebets27

I Agree! You said a mouth full!!!

Too many desparate people out here now days.

litebets

nrlightfoot

Speaking of making mistakes reading tickets, I just about threw away my ticket for Fridays mega millions drawing because I got forgot what day it was and thought  tuesdays numbers were for the friday drawing. Fortunately I keep my losing tickets around for a few days and check them again, so I didn't toss it.

Tenaj's avatarTenaj

Hurray!Congratulations to them!  I like stories like that.  The clerk was honest.  The people were seniors and living off of social security.  No fights or lawsuits. They didn't spend a lot of money on the lottery and they won a cushion.

justxploring's avatarjustxploring

Notice that 150 appears several times in this article? 

Great story!  71 years old and worked all his life.  Now he won't need to decide between buying food or prescriptions.   

gocart1's avatargocart1

Quote: Originally posted by ThatScaryChick on Feb 14, 2008

Congrats to him. He was lucky that he got an honest store clerk to tell him that he won a lot more then $150.

Yes this really was a very nice story......so many times we hear about a bad apple store clerk

konane's avatarkonane

Huge congratulations to them .... awesome win!!!!  Kudos to the store clerk!!!  Party

KY Floyd's avatarKY Floyd

This story came up about a month ago. At that time the people didn't want their name revealed. So much for that idea. 

https://www.lotterypost.com/thread.aspx?tp=168823&q=bad+axe&tab=nw&rp=search

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