Florida Lottery: Mishap leads to lottery jackpot for Florida couple

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Publix employee buys mistake worth millions

When the ticket printer at the Publix on Gladiolus Drive in south Fort Myers accidentally popped out two Florida Lotto tickets instead of just the one a customer ordered a few weeks ago, no one could have predicted the mechanical error would turn out to be a windfall.

The customer was offered the extra ticket free of charge — as is the store's policy — but the woman refused to take it. So the Publix clerk who sold the ticket offered the extra to a fellow employee, Patsy Daniels of south Fort Myers, for its value: $1.

The customer who refused the free ticket and the sales clerk who sold it to Daniels didn't know it then, but both let $5 million slip through their fingers.

That's the jackpot Daniels won in the July 25 drawing. She claimed her winnings from the Florida Lottery on Monday.

"She wanted to wait until her shift was over," said Bob Hayes, who manages the store at 11600 Gladiolus Drive, where Daniels has worked for almost five years. "That's the kind of person she is."

Daniels — who could not be reached Monday for comment — and her husband, Albert, decided to take the lump-sum jackpot payment of $2,833,323.33.

After buying the extra ticket, Daniels stuffed it into her green Publix vest, Hayes said, where it remained until last Thursday. That day, she returned to work from a vacation and learned her store had sold the winning ticket, but no one had claimed the prize.

Daniels pulled the ticket out of her vest and had a fellow employee run the numbers. But it took the insistence of the assistant store manager to convince Daniels she had actually won the prize.

"It never occurred to me that I had purchased the winning ticket until she actually verified the numbers," Daniels is quoted as saying in a Florida Lottery statement.

The Danielses live in a white mobile home in a modest south Fort Myers neighborhood. They weren't home Monday, and a spokeswoman for the Florida Lottery said they didn't want to comment.

In the press release, Daniels said she planned to invest the money, but also plans to take more family vacations.

Hayes, who said the couple has a son in Texas who is ill, hopes that Patsy Daniels' future plans include staying at his store, at least part time.

"It couldn't have happened for a greater person in the world," the manager said.

Thanks to duce for the tip.