A homeless man in the coastal California town of San Luis Obispo won a $1 million jackpot in the state lottery this week.
“I won a million dollars here in SLO,” the homeless man said in a post on the Instagram account of the vintage store Thrifty Beaches. The ticket, a Triple Red 777 scratcher, was purchased at a liquor store on Higuera Street in San Luis Obispo, about 200 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The jackpot winner was a loyal customer of Sandy’s Deli-Liquor at 586 Higuera Street, which now displays a sign that reads, “Millionaire Made Here.”
Store manager Wilson Samaan told The Epoch Times that he saw the man win the lottery.
Samaan wouldn’t identify the man, but he confirmed the man bought two 777 scratchers and some smaller ones on the evening of April 6 for $25.
He scratched two of them. He won nothing from the first. The second one brought him a $200 prize. The following morning, the homeless man came back to scratch and verify the final ticket, which turned out to be the jackpot, Samaan said.
When the homeless man finished scratching the card, the first thing he thought about was the fact that he would no longer be homeless, according to Samaan, and he asked Samaan to confirm the winning.
Samaan asked to see the scratcher. He went to the lotto machine behind the register and confirmed the jackpot, he said. The homeless man was ecstatic, thinking he had won $100,000, Samaan said.
“No, bro, that’s a million dollars,” Samaan said he told the man.
Samaan has known the man and his wife for a long time and offered to buy him a bus ticket to Fresno to deliver the ticket to the nearest California State Lottery office rather than mail it in and risk losing it. But the man was nervous about going there alone, so the proprietor offered to drive him.
“They are honest people. They don’t feel ill will,” Samaan said of the winners, adding that sometimes, the man even gives the store owner a heads up about people who have been known to steal.
“So I’m returning the favor by looking after him and taking him to Fresno.”
