Lottery winner in need of a kidney nearly didn't claim $14.3 million

Wisconsin State Journal and MSNBC ^ | 1-24-12 | Scott Stump

[afraidfortherepublic]

A military veteran in need of a kidney transplant had $14.3 million sitting on a table in his house and didn't know it.

For three days after it was announced that the winning Megabucks ticket from the Jan. 14 drawing had been sold at a Wisconsin Mobil station, Napolean Elvord had no idea a life-changing sum of money was right at his fingertips. The clerks at the Madison store that Elvord visits daily asked him if he was the one who bought the winning ticket. But he said it wasn’t him — and as the days passed, no one came forward to claim the prize.

Then the store manager, Corky Wunderlin, asked him again, and it dawned on Elvord: He had mixed up the drawing days that produced the Megabucks winner. Elvord still didn’t believe it when he found the winning $1 ticket sitting on a table at home, so he took it to the Wisconsin Lottery office, which validated that he was about to become a multi-millionaire. He got a lump-sum payment of $10.2 million, which computes to $6.87 million after taxes, overcoming one in seven million odds.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Video at link

Military vet Napolean Elvord, left, poses at the Madison, Wis. Mobil station where he purchased the lottery ticket worth $14.3 million.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Wisconsin Lottery Winner Ping

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I’m happy for this man because it looks like he could use the money. Of course he’s moving back to Texas! No good deed...

[Baynative]

Good news, good story.