Italian sanitation workers in Bitonto traced rubbish from a lottery outlet and spent hours searching a refuse lorry to recover a €1 million ticket that a family had discarded after it was stamped "not payable." SANB head Roberto Nicola Toscano said the outlet had stamped the slip because the prize was too large to be paid there. Staff found the intact ticket around 5:30am and returned it to the owner.
Sanitation Workers Recover €1 Million Lottery Ticket After Overnight Search
FILE PHOTO - Trash bags are left on the sidewalk and the street before the trash collection service picks them up. (is associated with: «Garbage collectors retrieve €1m lottery ticket after overnight search») Jan Woitas/dpa
Italian sanitation workers recovered a €1 million lottery ticket after an overnight search through rubbish and returned it to the owner who had mistakenly discarded it, local media reported.
The woman, from the south-eastern town of Bitonto, left the ticket at a lottery outlet after it was stamped "not payable," the ANSA news agency reported, citing the local refuse collection service.
Officials said the marking did not mean the ticket had lost its value; rather, the €1 million prize was too large to be paid out directly at the outlet, SANB waste management head Roberto Nicola Toscano told ANSA.
Only after returning home did the family realise the slip was a winner. By then the ticket had been discarded and mixed in with other waste.
Toscano said SANB staff traced the route of the rubbish collected from the lottery outlet and spent hours sifting through the contents of a refuse lorry at a sorting facility.
At about 5:30am, an employee found the intact ticket in a torn bin bag among numerous damaged lottery slips. The company returned the ticket to its owner.
"There's something wonderful about this story," Toscano told ANSA.
This incident highlights both the value of careful waste sorting and the occasional surprises that can turn an ordinary morning into a life-changing one.
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