Grandpa will cover that college tuition now
Charlie Watson has always lived a simple life.
For the past 15 years he’s worked as a night stocker at a grocery store, always organizing the canned goods on rows of shelves and putting away a little portion of his paycheck each month to pay for the college tuition of his grandson. He wants his grandson to have a better life than his own.
“I enjoy my job, because it’s simple,“ Watson says. “That’s why I do it.”
Recently, Watson checked the winning numbers at the South Capitol Shell in southeast Washington DC. That’s where he stops daily to purchase a few lottery tickets. This day, he found that his luck had changed.
“$250,000? Really? You guys are joking right?” Watson quizzed the clerks. The ticket he purchased was worth the top prize amount.
Watson has been playing the same numbers for years, and winning this amount of money really took him by surprise.
“At first, I thought that I only won $5,000,” he said. “When I spoke to an employee at the Claim Center, she told me that I had won the top prize. I told her that she was joking.”
He really didn’t truly believe it until he received his check from the DC Lottery Commission. “I don’t have any big plans for myself,” Watson said. “But, my grandson is in college. We didn’t know how we were going to pay his tuition, but I guess that’s not hard to figure out now.”
Sounds like a win for grandpa and grandson both.
Lottery winner keeps his job - then gets FIRED
A New York City doorman kept his day job at an exclusive Park Avenue apartment building after winning a $5 million lottery. Now he has been dismissed…let go…okay, he was fired.
Kate Ferranti, a spokesman for the union representing apartment building workers, said Richie Randazzo notified the union’s grievance center on Tuesday that he had been fired.
The doorman, Richie Randazzo, advised the union representing apartment building workers that he had been fired. The building’s management company (Brown Harris Stevens) did not return calls.
Randazzo’s salary as a doorman was $40,000 annually. After he won the lottery, he is receiving winnings of $260,000 each year. Reports state that his attendance at work has not been regular, so that may have been the reason for his dismissal.
Randazzo plans on getting a boat and a new car. Looks like he now has time to enjoy his new toys.
The family that plays lotto together, stays together
The Matthews family has been celebrating this weekend after they won the second prize in the Jersey Hospice Million Pound Lottery.
Mo Matthews was part of a group of 13 members of his family, including his wife, two sons and sisters, and together they won around US$200,000..
Mr. Matthews said: ‘You don’t really think you are going to win. We looked upon it as a donation and didn’t expect to win anything. You always think of it as the kind of thing that happens to other people.’
Mr Matthews and his wife, Jill, were watching the draw live on TV, but they only watched the drawing for first prize and then turned it off before their winning numbers were announced as second prize.
‘My younger son came down to see us so I turned the television off,’ said Mrs Matthews. ‘The next morning I turned on Teletext to see if we knew anyone who had won and I thought the second prize number looked familiar. I went upstairs, grabbed the ticket and shouted. My husband thought there was something wrong with the dog because he hasn’t been well. But I told him we had won the lottery. I just can’t believe it’s happened.’
Lottery winner takes a year to claim prize
Peter Dushop could be called a procrastinating millionaire.
Dushop, 24 years old, is a realtor. Approximately a year ago, he won a $3.6-million Lotto jackpot. But he waited until Monday - three weeks before the deadline to come forward - to claim his winnings.
“I just really needed some time to think about how this will affect me and the people around me,” Dushop said in a news release. “I’m still kind of in shock.”
Come on, I know that’s a lot of money, but “still in shock” a year later?
Dushop put his winning ticket in a safe-deposit box while he pondered exactly how to handle this change in his life. By doing so, he has lost almost $100,000 in interest that he would have earned during that time if the money had been in a bank account.
However, Dushop said he isn’t too worried about the lost interest income.
“I definitely thought about the interest,” he said, “but in relation to the overall prize I thought it was worth taking the time to just come to terms with everything.”
Could you wait a year before claiming your lottery winnings?
Lottery losers sue the lottery!
In Indianapolis, there’s a strange lawsuit being filed. It claims that the Hoosier Lottery misrepresented the odds of winning a particular scratch-off game. The suit has been granted class-action status by a Marion county judge.
So, anyone who bought a ticket to the game can join the lawsuit. This sounds like a free-for-all just waiting to happen.
The suit states that the lottery misstated the number and amount of prizes available in the “Cash Blast” game during some months of 2005 and 2006. Two of the plaintiffs said that the advertising for the game misled them, and they were lead to believe that the odds of winning and prizes available were greater than they actually were.
The game promised seven grand prizes, and each grand prize was supposed to be worth $250,000.
Lottery spokesman Andrew Reed had no comment, saying the Lottery does not comment on pending lawsuits.