Man Wins $1.2 Million, Didn't Know For Three Months

When the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots went crazy recently, my wife and I bought a ticket for each game.

We are not lottery players, but when jackpots reach $1 billion, we throw a few bucks at it. We checked the tickets immediately after the drawing, just to find out we didn't win.

However, a man in Australia has a slightly different process for checking lottery tickets.

This man bought a lottery ticket in October, placed it in a drawer, and basically forgot about it. Turns out that the ticket for the October 24 drawing was worth $1.6 million or about $1.2 million in U.S. dollars.

The unidentified man says he has been playing the lottery on a regular basis for about 10 years and will go "three months or so" before checking them.

"It's crazy to think that $1.6 million has been sitting in that drawer for months," the man said. "I wish I had checked the ticket sooner."

The man already has plans for the cash. When asked by officials with The Lott what he was going to do with his winnings, the man said, "I'm going to take care of my family and pay off the mortgage."

He plans to keep working and think of ways to invest what money is leftover.