A Pennsylvania man threw away $1.25 million worth of lottery tickets, which can no longer be redeemed.
“He was mad,” said Wendy Hinton, who works at the York, Pa., grocery store and sold him the tickets, the York Daily Record reports. “Wouldn’t you be?”
Hinton sold the man 25 Quinto tickets, numbers 4-3-4-1-8 and worth $50,000 each, in March, according to the Record. It’s unclear why he threw the tickets away, but Hinton speculates he misread them.
The man was a regular customer at the time and lived a few blocks from the store. Hinton said he always bought a lot of tickets with those numbers, typically spending about $100 a day.
The Pennsylvania Lottery put out a news release warning the tickets had to be cashed in by March 13, but it was too late when the man realized his mistake. The $1.25 million remains in the state lottery fund.
Lottery spokeswoman Lauren Bottaro said unclaimed tickets are very rare, and this man’s misfortune emphasizes the importance of players checking their tickets. “We do what we can,” Bottaro said. “But sometimes, it’s just not enough.”