News writer; Opinion columnist
How many times have you lost a receipt or misplaced the ticket you needed to get out of a parking garage? Even when they're important, it's easy to lose tiny pieces of paper.
So what would you do if you suddenly found yourself holding a small piece of paper that was worth millions of dollars? Where would you put a winning Powerball or Mega Millions ticket if you couldn't drive straight to the lottery office and cash it in, or if you wanted more time to figure out how to invest and save your jackpot?
As it turns out, people can get pretty creative when they need to hide something valuable and don't have easy access to a safe. These are true stories of the craziest places people have hidden their winning lottery tickets.
Dig deep
People often fantasize about discovering buried treasure, but no one ever thinks they'll be the ones doing the burying. However, this was the situation facing one Michigan man, who chose to remain anonymous, after he won $1 million playing the lottery.
His adventure started in 2025 when he stopped at a Speedway convenience store in Paw Paw, Michigan, and stumbled into the happiest accident of his life. The man told Michigan Lottery officials:
I play 'Cashword' tickets occasionally, but purchasing this ticket was a total fluke. I asked the cashier for a different game, and she mistakenly handed me this 'Major Cashword' ticket instead. When she realized she gave me the wrong ticket, she offered to give me the game I'd asked for, but I told her I would just keep the 'Major Cashword' ticket instead.
He waited until the next morning to check the ticket, but when he scanned the barcode, the lottery app told him it was worth a seven-figure prize. The 45-year-old recalled to lottery officials:
When $1 million came up on the screen, I felt like I couldn't breathe! I thought it was some sort of prank at first.
Next, he had to figure out where to keep his ticket until he could cash it in:
Once I realized it was real, I put the ticket in a jar and buried it in the yard because I was so paranoid something would happen to it if I kept it in the house!
Fortunately, his treasure didn't stay buried long, and he quickly found his way to the Michigan state lottery offices, where he cashed in his ticket and walked away with a check for $634,000 after selecting the lump sum payout. The man said that he planned to use the money to pay off his bills and save for retirement.
Hopefully, he put his cash in the bank and didn't bury it in the same hole where he kept his ticket.
Heat up a jackpot
Most people use microwaves to heat up burritos and soups. North Carolina resident Cristen Breton used his to protect $2 million from his hungry dog. Breton said he was enjoying a beautiful summer day in August 2024 when he decided to head to the Fast Shop in Salisbury, North Carolina, and test his lottery luck with some $20 Platinum instant-win tickets.
“I went into the store and bought three tickets,” Breton told North Carolina Lottery officials. While his first two were losers, he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw what the third one was worth.
“The third one won. I thought it was a joke,” Breton said after realizing he won the game’s $2 million jackpot. Breton recalled:
The cashier told me to go home and not tell anyone. I put the ticket in the microwave to protect it from my dog.
Fortunately, Breton didn't forget his ticket was in the microwave and made a frozen dinner.
Instead, he quickly took the ticket from his kitchen appliance to the state lottery office, where he opted for the lump-sum payout and collected $858,006 after taxes.
When asked how he planned to spend the money, the big winner said that there was just one person he wanted to help. Breton explained:
The only thing I want to do is help my mom. She deserves this.
2 + 2 = one million
In times of stress, we often seek places that are familiar to us. That may be why one group of teachers selected an unusual hiding place after their lottery pool won big.
Kentucky Lottery officials knew that something unusual was happening when thirty cheering middle school teachers showed up at their office with a winning ticket in February 2024.
The teachers were all in a lottery pool together, and their Powerball ticket for the January 27, 2024, drawing came up big when they correctly picked the five white numbers and won $1 million.
The group called themselves the Jones 30, named after the school they all worked at, Rector A. Jones Middle School in Florence, Kentucky. One of the winning teachers explained to the Kentucky Lottery officials:
We all taught at the same school at one point or another. We've got counselors, admins, special ed teachers, the school nurse... Some have moved on or retired, but we still continue to do it. We've remained buddies for all of these years.
Their five winning numbers were 7, 38, 65, 66, and 68, which the teachers explained they had played in every drawing since 2019, when they made a mistake while selecting their numbers for that day's drawing. One winner explained:
Our math teacher and assistant principal pulled them out of a hat. At first, we didn't have the right amount of numbers to choose from, so we drew again. Thank goodness we did.
After realizing they were winners, the player holding the tickets, a retired math teacher, faced a dilemma: where would she keep them until the entire group could organize to come collect the money? She figured out that she could put it in the one place that she knew no one would ever check: a textbook. She joked with the lottery:
No one looks in a math book. I knew it would be safe there... page 200. I have checked this a thousand times.
The group opted to accept the lump-sum payout, which meant that, after splitting the prize 30 ways, each teacher received a check for $24,000. Some said they'd use the money to travel, while others planned to invest or pay off their bills.
Whatever they do with their wealth, though, they said they plan to keep playing the lottery together. One winner expressed to lottery officials:
A lot of us have gone on trips together, we've had babies and grandbabies over the years. We always have so much fun. It's just cool to win as a group and share this experience.
Get a leg up
While many players opt for clever hiding places for their winning tickets, one North Carolina resident went in the other direction and decided never to let her ticket out of her sight.
Pamela Lunsford gave herself an early Christmas present in December 2021 by going on a lottery-winning hot streak.
The Rosman, North Carolina resident traveled to the Lake Toxaway Trading Post, where she purchased three $20 Winter Winnings scratch-off games. She uncovered the first one and saw that she won $30. Not a bad start. She uncovered the second one and revealed a $100 win. Now she was at a profit of $70.
Finally, she uncovered her final ticket and discovered it was a big winner worth $80,000. She had pulled off the ultra-rare trifecta of three tickets leading to three wins, including one major prize. Lunsford said:
I was really excited that I won $130. When I realized what I won on the last ticket, I started shaking. I was in total shock.
Once she saw that she was holding onto a winner, she decided the best way to make sure she didn't lose it was to tape it to her leg.
“I can lose a purse or a book bag, but I can't lose my leg,” she explained to lottery officials when collecting her money.
Her body part system worked because she arrived at the lottery headquarters with her ticket and, after paying taxes, received a check worth $70,756. She told officials that she took her family out for a crab dinner to celebrate and that she plans to use the money to purchase a new car after her old one was totaled in an accident.
“Something like this, it's life-changing for me,” Lunsford said.
Say it, don't spray it
North Carolina Lottery players might want to invest in a home safe or a bank safe deposit box because they are constantly searching for creative and odd ways to hide their winning tickets.
Our latest case begins with Fletcher, North Carolina resident Christopher Gueho, who works as a maintenance worker at a retirement community. His entire life changed, though, when he purchased a $10 Jumbo Bucks instant-win game, opened the ticket, and discovered he had just won $750,000.
Gueho said that his first emotion was to feel completely overwhelmed by the life-changing amount of money. “I was a nervous wreck,” he admitted to state lottery officials.
Before he could decide how he wanted to spend the money, he had to find a safe place to keep his ticket. He didn't want to keep it on him in case it was damaged during some of the dirty work he had to do for his job. Gueho continued:
At first, I thought I'd store it in the spare room at my mom's home. Then I thought maybe the freezer, because no one would look behind the pork chops for a lottery ticket.
Finally, he settled on a paint sprayer in his garage, figuring that no one would bother to look through his old tools.
Gueho made it to the North Carolina Lottery offices with his paint-free ticket and, after paying taxes, collected a check for $519,378. He told officials that he plans to buy his first house with the money.
“I never thought I'd be able to have my own home,” Gueho said.
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