Luck struck twice for a Norwood, Massachusetts, man who found out his lottery ticket had the winning numbers in this week's Lucky For Life drawing — then realized, minutes later, that he had another ticket with the same number.
Kenneth J. Stokes received a call from a Massachusetts State Lottery representative Monday notifying him that his Lucky for Life season ticket had won him a prize of $25,000 a year for life, according to a statement by the lottery.
After the call, Stokes realized that he had another Lucky for Life season ticket that his family had bought him — which, as it turned out, had the same lucky numbers, which were based on several family birthdays.
Christian Teja, a lottery spokesman, said it was infrequent for people to win twice in one drawing.
"For a game like this, where there's so many possible winning combinations ... people rarely buy the same ticket with the same numbers," Teja said. "They have to be really confident that those numbers will come in."
Stokes chose the cash option for his winnings, and collected a pair of checks for $390,000 each, Teja said.
According to the statement, Stokes plans to use his winnings to take his family on a vacation, pay for his son's college tuition, as well as his daughter's remaining car payments.
Stokes was "excited as most people are when they win a prize of this magnitude," Teja said.
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That's a Real Double Dip! Congrats Mr. Stokes
Congrats to Mr. Stokes on his double win! That is amazing that he got two different tickets and won on both.
Them birthday numbers pay off!!
That is some crazy luck.
He won all that money. He must be stoked!
Oh no, in this case, he should have kept each as the annuity option!!! He became disposable vacation leaning, apparently.
But there still has been NO GRAND PRIZE WINNER in the 13 months since they adopted the present format.
https://www.lotterypost.com/luckyforlife
Congrats! If it was me I would have taken one ticket with the lump sum and the other ticket as annual payments...nothing like having a guaranteed income stream for the rest of your life. Not enough to retire on but still a nice addition to your income.
Congrats Mr. Stokes
he chose his own path and so he might come to regret it or not
With only the local states participating, someone in the area winning the MM or PB jackpot is more likely to happen before that happens.
All prize amounts based on a wager of $2.
1 in 82
Connecticut fares better with winning L4L then MM...we still have yet to have a grand Prize winner in that game
The Massachusetts Lottery has a subscription service. It is open to all, you don't have to be resident in the state to participate.
Kenneth J. Stokes good job!
Congratulations Mr, Kenneth J. Stokes
Spend Wisely 
Congrats Dude,correct me if I,M wrong if he had taken 7,000 a week for life wouldn,t that have put him in a different tax bracket,you know the tax laws are always changing.
Congratulation Mr Stokes he sorta looks like Big Papi....
Great idea!! Its not often that you can do both! Get a bunch of cash and an annuity!
@Get Paid
The $7,000 per week is a 5 + lucky ball hit. He just hit the 5 of 5 without the lucky ball for the second tier prize of $25K per year. Good for him hitting the second prize twice in the same drawing. Unless they change the game matrix back to something more closely resembling the old matrix there will never be another grand prize winner with these stupid odds. You would have a better chance getting your hand crushed by a lobster claw, and mauled by an angry moose on the same day up here than winning the L4L.
wow talk about luckily. its one thing to win a lottery prize for a lifetime,its another thing to win two of them!
I wonder what are the odds of that.