"Wrong" lottery ticket delivers multi-millions

Among the many lottery stories littering America’s Mega Million media madness last week was the tale of a Flint, Michigan man who won himself $4,428,422 by mistake in the state lottery.

Digital Spy reports that the anonymous man decided to purchase a Cash for Life lottery ticket after mistakenly putting a $20 bill into the ticket vending machine.

“I didn’t mean to put $20 into the lottery ticket machine; I thought I grabbed a $10, then I had to buy something. I picked the $10 Cash for Life ticket because I only play $10 tickets,” he said.

It turned out to be the best mistake of his life – he now has the option of receiving an annual payment of $208,000 for the rest of his life, with a minimum prize guarantee of $4,160,000, or a one-time cash payment of $4,428,422, and says he plans to live “debt-free from bills and mortgage payments” and share the wealth with family members.

In related news, the not-so-positive story of McDonald’s worker Mirlande Wilson (37) continues to intrigue Americans in the wake of the record breaking Mega Millions lottery, in which three tickets sold in Maryland, Illinois and Kansas each won a third of the $656,000 jackpot .

Last week Maryland resident Wilson stepped forward claiming to be the winner from that state, triggering a media frenzy and a row with her fellow employees, with whom she declined to share.

However, days later Wilson has yet to produce evidence of the win, instead trotting out a series of increasingly unbelievable excuses for not doing so.

The story has now morphed into whether she is telling porkies – and possible psychological reasons why that should be so – or whether she has embarked on a devious strategy for defeating the claims of her colleagues at work.

Either way, Mirlande was making media mileage bigtime over the Easter weekend.