Man nets huge lottery prize after accidentally buying two tickets in Michigan

An online accident netted a Michigan man a whopping $2 million, lottery officials say.

Samir Mazahem, 56, went online to purchase a Michigan Mega Millions lottery ticket using family members’ birthdays as the numbers, lottery officials said in an Oct. 23 news release.

After forgetting to save the numbers in the app for future use, Mazahem said he got back online to save the numbers as favorites to make them easier to play down the line.

“What I didn’t realize, is that meant I would be buying a second ticket with the same numbers,” Mazahem told lottery officials. “Once I figured out I had bought two tickets with identical numbers, I was a little bummed but didn’t think much about it.”

Mazahem ended up matching all five numbers — 01, 05, 09, 10 and 23 — on both tickets in the June 9 drawing, meaning he’d won the Mega Millions lottery twice.

It earned him a total $2 million prize, with $1 million per ticket.

“I recently logged into the app to check on some tickets I had bought, and that is when I saw I had two $1 million prizes pending,” he told lottery officials. “Saying that I was stunned is an understatement. I couldn’t believe it was real. It took several days for the reality to set in that my mistake had paid off to the tune of $2 million!”

Mazahem claimed his prize and told officials he plans to use it to buy a home and save for retirement.

“Winning is exciting and gives me some comfort knowing that when I retire, I will have money in the bank,” Mazahem said.

This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 10:11 AM with the headline "Man nets huge lottery prize after accidentally buying two tickets in Michigan."