Waste workers help find binned €1m lottery ticket in Italy

A lottery player in Bitonto, southern Italy, is reportedly the luckiest man after waste workers found his discarded €1 million winning ticket. The anonymous player initially threw the ticket away at a shop after being told it was "non-payable," a message that appears when a prize is too large for the shop to dispense. He only realized his mistake when a relative informed him that the numbers he consistently played had been drawn. This led to a two-day search through a "mountain of waste" collected by a bin lorry. The head of the refuse company described the recovery as "miraculous." The mix-up occurred due to the shop's inability to pay out the substantial prize.

Garbagemen in Italy's Puglia region successfully recovered a €1 million (US$1.15 million) instant win lottery ticket from the trash. The ticket was found intact after the anonymous winner, who had thrown it away believing it was worthless, realized her regular numbers had won the jackpot. Upon returning to the shop, she discovered the ticket had already been collected with the trash. She then contacted the waste management company, SANB, whose workers meticulously searched their truck's refuse to retrieve the valuable ticket.

Refuse collectors in Italy's Puglia region helped an anonymous woman recover a €1 million lottery ticket she had accidentally thrown away. The woman discovered her ticket, which she always played with the same numbers, had won the jackpot after a shop machine indicated it was "non-payable" due to the small win limit. Upon realizing the ticket was already collected by a garbage truck, she contacted waste management company SANB. Workers from SANB identified the correct truck and, after a day-long search at a specialist facility, found the ticket intact among other rubbish. The woman will cover the costs incurred by SANB for the search.