Happy accident nets North Platte player $44,000
Dorothy Thiem didn’t mean to buy two of the same 2by2 ticket, but she did and ended up winning $44,000, all by accident. On top of that, she nearly stayed home instead of buying tickets.
“I was watching a really good TV show,” Dorothy said. “I almost didn’t play.”
Dorothy decided to head to the Kwik Stop on North Jeffers in North Platte on September 10 to buy her tickets, like she does almost every night. Whatever it was that made her get up and go get those tickets, she was glad for it.
She marks out all of her play slips a few days in advance. She usually plays the same numbers, so a lot of the slips are marked the same. She handed them over to the clerk and paid for her tickets.
When she looked at them, she had two identical single-play 2by2 tickets. Valid for the September 10 drawing with Red numbers 15 and 24 and White numbers 16 and 17. She could have kicked herself, not just for playing it twice, but not reversing the order of the numbers, she said.
She got home and waited until the drawing that night before going to bed. When the results came in, Dorothy realized her mistake had just won her an extra $22,000.
“It was remarkable,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep until 3 a.m.”
The next morning she headed down to the Nebraska Lottery claim office in North Platte to redeem her tickets where she’s become a bit of a regular.
Dorothy has won 2by2 before. She won in 2005, 2008 and 2011. These two identical tickets brought her total up to five wins, and that’s just on one game. She’s also won MyDaY twice, Pick 3 a few times and she’s won $450 on Pick 5 as well.
“I was complaining that I was way overdue,” she joked. “This made up for it.”
Dorothy said she’s planning on paying off a few bills, saving a little of the money and taking her family on a trip.
After this win, it’s kind of cemented in her mind which day is the best day to play, she said.
“It’s odd,” Dorothy said. “Each time I’ve won it was on a Tuesday. My two sons were born on a Tuesday. Tuesday must be lucky for me.”
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