News writer; Opinion columnist
From our keys to our wallets to our sunglasses, we lose things all the time. However, the one thing that should be impossible to lose is a winning lottery ticket worth millions of dollars. Surely something that valuable would be kept in a safe or another secure location until the player can cash it in for a seven- or eight-figure jackpot.
Sadly, winning lottery tickets are lost all the time, and without an actual physical ticket, there's no way to collect your prize, whether it's one dollar or one million. While many tickets are lost and never found, a few lucky players have had winning tickets returned to them by good Samaritans.
These are true stories of lottery players who won big, lost their ticket, and had their fortune returned to them.
Divine intervention
As a devout churchgoer, Brampton, Canada resident Hakeem Nosiru must have thought his prayers were answered when he purchased a ticket for the January 17, 2014, Lotto Max drawing and won the game's top prize of $50 million CAD.
After confirming his win at a lottery retailer, he ran through the aisles, crying and laughing with joy as he thought of how his life would change.
But for Nosiru, winning the lottery was the easy part; cashing in his ticket would prove to be the real challenge. Because he couldn't cash the ticket immediately, he tried to keep it secure by putting it in an envelope and taping it to his stomach.
After realizing how uncomfortable that was, he gave it to his wife of thirty years, Abiola Nosiru, and taped it inside her purse to keep their fortune safe. However, while attending church together, Abiola checked her purse and, to her horror, found that the ticket was missing.
Speaking with reporters, she described the terror she felt when she realized that the ticket was lost.
I had a fly in my stomach, and I couldn't sleep for days. I couldn't eat. I was devastated.
The Nosirus went into a panic and tore apart their entire house searching for the ticket. They looked under furniture, emptied their trash cans, and searched their garage, but there was no sign of the lost ticket.
Fortunately for the pair, they signed the back of the ticket before they lost it, and an honest member of their church congregation found it and returned it to them a few months later on April 1st, saying, “April fools!”
When speaking with reporters about the relief he felt in getting his ticket back, Hakeem said, "We just wanted to see the reality. And the reality is right here now."
His wife told reporters that they were so relieved to get their ticket back, they still haven't considered how they will spend the money. Abiola told the reporters:
We are relieved, we are very excited, we are very happy. We're going to relax with our [four] children and our [five] grandchildren.
Honest Yogi
Over the years, we've published plenty of stories featuring lottery retailers who have tried to steal or trick players out of winning lottery tickets, so it's only fair that we spotlight some who do the right thing.
Convenience store owner Yogi Patel named his Lyndhurst, New Jersey, store Leprachaun News because he believed it was a lucky name, and for one fortunate customer, it truly was.
Patel says the man, who chose to remain anonymous, purchased hundreds of dollars' worth of scratch-off tickets, including several $20 Double Diamond games.
Perhaps distracted by the dozens of tickets he scratched, the man didn't notice that one of his tickets was a big winner, and he tossed it in the trash. It was only when updating his own records that Patel realized he had sold a winning ticket that hadn't been redeemed.
He dug through the trash can by his register until he found the winning ticket worth $2 million. "One by one, I'm looking. After six tickets, I find it," he told reporters.
While Patel didn't know the identity of the ticket's true owner, he did some investigating, found the man's phone number, and told him he had left something very valuable behind in his store.
While some people may have been tempted to keep the ticket, Patel knew that wouldn't have been right. "This is not my money. God looking to me always," he said. And he didn't walk away completely empty-handed because he still received $30,000 for selling a winner.
Patel's customers say they weren't shocked by his act of incredible generosity. One told reporters:
He's a good guy, good guy. That wasn't shocking. You never find an honest man like him around. It's tough, especially when you got a million-dollar ticket. Other people might put it in their pocket and claim it for themselves.
Clean sweep
It's impossible to know how many winning lottery tickets are simply forgotten, lost, or mistakenly tossed in the trash, but one man is one million dollars richer than he should be, thanks to the actions of his housekeeper.
Khalil Soussa of Medford, Massachusetts, purchased a $15,000,000 Money Maker instant win ticket in 2023 from Tony's Convenience store. He scratched the ticket but forgot to check the results, which wouldn't be a big deal if it had been a loser or only worth a small prize, but Soussa's ticket was worth one million dollars.
He either didn't know he had revealed a winner or was distracted by something more important, like doom scrolling on his phone, but he put the seven-figure ticket down and forgot he had it. Months later, his housekeeper found the ticket in a flower vase and handed it back to him.
This time, Soussa acted with the proper sense of urgency and promptly cashed the ticket, electing to take the one-time payout and collect a $650,000 payout before taxes.
Soussa told the Mass Lottery that he planned to use the money to help out a friend and donate money to charity. He didn't mention if he would give his maid a bonus, but she deserves something more than a new mop.
Customer service
Those saying we’re living in an increasingly distracted society would only need to look at forgetful lottery winners as proof.
Andy Patel was a clerk at the Pit Stop convenience store in Salina, Kansas, when a long-time customer walked in with three lottery tickets. The customer, who chose to remain anonymous, purchased the tickets at another store but wanted to verify if they were winners at the Pit Stop. Patel scanned the first two tickets, confirming they were losers.
Then, somehow, both the man and Patel forgot to scan the third ticket, and it was left on the store's counter. It was only after the player left the store that Patel noticed and scanned the third ticket, and revealed that it was a million-dollar winner.
Patel immediately called his boss, Kal Patel, and explained the situation. “He said six zeroes were popping up on the screen,” said Kal Patel, who is not related to Andy. “We couldn't believe it.”
The clerk didn't know who the customer was, but based on his description, Kal thought he knew who the tickets belonged to.
Kal grabbed the ticket, jumped into his car, and drove to the neighborhood where he thought he could find him. He explained:
I went into the neighborhood where I knew he lived, but I couldn't find him. Their cars weren't outside, or anything, and I couldn't find their house, exactly which one it was.
He returned to the store but decided to check again, and that's when he saw the man driving his own car. Kal flagged him down and returned the winning ticket to him. He stated:
I showed them the ticket and told them they were winners. They started shaking. They couldn't believe it. Good deeds come back to help you, and bad deeds come back to haunt you. It felt good to find it and then find them.
Kal added that even though he could have kept the ticket and tried to take the money, it felt better to do the right thing and give it back. He recalled:
If it had just been dropped and we didn't know whose it was, then we wouldn't have known where to look. But we did. It felt good to give it to them. And the praise we got back from everyone for doing this was really nice. They said it restored their faith in humanity.
Friends have chided Kal Patel for giving up the $1 million, but he said he didn't want to live with the guilt of keeping money that wasn't his. He said:
I knew it was a longtime customer who had left it here. They didn't know they had the winning ticket, so they never would have known if I hadn't found them. But then you'd have to live through the guilt of that all your life.
Stranger
While it's one thing to return a winning ticket to a friend or colleague that you have a relationship with, it's another to give it back to someone you don't know and will probably never see again. However, this was the case for one fortunate Canadian player who lost and found a million-dollar ticket.
Mario Ramido's misadventure began when he purchased a ticket for the April 25, 2025, Lotto 6/49 drawing. He won part of the game's golden ball, which entitled him to a $1,000,000 prize. He placed the winning ticket in his wallet, went out to celebrate, and somehow lost it.
He had no idea where his wallet was and thought his fortune was gone forever until a miracle happened. Ramido told reporters:
I was lucky enough that someone found it and returned it to me. The ticket was still in my wallet when it was returned. I'm taking this as a sign to pay it forward and help someone else out.
He added: “My prayers have been answered!”
Ramido says that he buys a ticket for every 6/49 drawing, and had never won a significant prize before, which may have been why he was so careless with his ticket.
“The first thing [on my list] is a new house!” he said when asked how he planned to spend his money. While a house is nice, maybe he should get an Apple AirTag first in case he ever loses his wallet again.
