'Shopkeeper said I'd won £40,000 on lottery but I couldn't find ticket anywhere'

07 March 2024 , 05:43

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A lucky Kentucky couple lost their $50,000 lottery ticket, then found it again months later to claim the prize (Image: AP)

A lucky couple didn't even realise they had won the lottery until they walked into a convenience store and shop worker told them they had just scooped the jackpot.

There was just one problem — they couldn't find the winning ticket, worth $50,000 (£39,287.50) they had purchased from the shop in Bowling Green, Kentucky, 70 miles north of Nashville.

Mark Perdue recalls the moment in November 2023 when he walked into the shop and was told he had won the lottery. The clerk congratulated him, he said.

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"I said, 'For what?' And she said, 'You won the lottery.' I said, 'I wish.' She said, 'You did. I have you on video,'" Perdue said. The clerk reportedly showed him and his wife the footage that revealed them purchasing the winning ticket, and, after finishing their errands, went back home to look for it.

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They searched and searched and searched, but they were ultimately unable to find it. His wife said: "I've been beating myself up for three months thinking I threw this ticket away."

Fate struck the couple in February, however, when the missing ticket miraculously showed up in an unlikely place — one neither Perdue nor his wife would have thought to check.

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Perdue is the president of Kiriu USA, which markets itself as "a global automotive leader and environmentally friendly supplier of automotive brake rotors." Founded in Kiryu, Japan, in 1906, Kiriu USA expanded to the states in 2002, making Bowling Green its new home, according to its website.

It just so happened that a visitor from another of the company's manufacturing plants was in town and needed to use one of the company cars. Rarely used, the cars tend to sit in storage for months at a time.

Perdue had been the last person to use the particular vehicle he decided to check — and inside it, he discovered the missing $50,000 lottery ticket. He was shocked, so much so that he said he was shaking.

"I don't know how long it might have sat out there if I hadn't needed the car," he said. "I was shaking a little bit." He said he immediately told his wife, who was ecstatic.

The next day, they drove to the lottery headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, the state's largest city, to claim their prize. They opted to accept a check for $36,000, which factored out taxes.

The couple said they plan to use the money to help pay off some bills, then said they might take a trip with whatever remains, they told lottery officials when they claimed their prize.

Jeremiah Hassel