Sleepy lottery player thinks he won $7 — but he actually hit the jackpot in Arkansas
An Arkansas man woke up to check his lottery results, holding out a sliver of hope that he was about to win big.
“Oh, I won $7,” the half-asleep Fayetteville lottery player thought to himself after checking the results.
He promptly went back to sleep the morning of Feb. 26, thinking his win was just a few dollars.
Later in the day, however, he realized he had won much more than $7. He had hit the 180,000 jackpot in the Feb. 25 Quick Pick drawing, Arkansas Lottery officials said in a Feb. 28 news release.
Still in disbelief, however, he woke up his brother to get a second opinion.
“Hey, look at these numbers and see if I really won,” he asked his brother, according to the release.
The pair checked the winning numbers and were shocked, officials said. They took the tickets to a retailer because they didn’t believe they had hit the jackpot.
A clerk told them they needed to take their winning ticket to the claims center in Little Rock, the release said, indicating that their win was real.
The winner plans to buy a trailer with his winnings, officials said.
Fayetteville is about a 190-mile drive northwest from Little Rock.
This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 2:39 PM with the headline "Sleepy lottery player thinks he won $7 — but he actually hit the jackpot in Arkansas."
