When retired farmer Stan Knapp went into an Edmonton, Canada drugstore last month to buy his usual Lotto Max lottery ticket he had no idea that he was walking into an accidental fortune…thanks to a store clerk’s error.
The clerk accidentally printed out a 6/49 ticket, and Knapp, being an agreeable sort of fellow, simply accepted it as an extra purchase to his correct ticket.
It was an understanding gesture that brought him a Cdn16 million reward when the ‘mistake’ turned out to be a winning ticket.
When he returned to the store on July 3 to check the ticket, the lottery machine began acting strangely and shut down. After staff restarted the machine, store manager Lorna Lenk read the screen and told Knapp he had won Cdn$1.6 million. His arms folded, Knapp took the news in stride.
His reaction barely changed even when he learned the winning amount was actually 10 times that amount – a stunning Cdn16 million.
With the staff celebrating around him, Knapp remained calm, the store owner revealed.
Knapp’s kindness in accepting the store clerk’s error stand in contrast to the case of a recent incident in the Newfoundland and Labrador community, where a local resident encountered a similar ticket-issued-in-error experience in a convenience store but refused to accept the mistaken ticket….it was worth Cdn30 million!