Mega Millions winner nearly forgot $273M ticket at gas station

Publish date: 2024-08-20

He averted a Mega-disaster!

A New Jersey man distracted by his phone left a pair of Mega Millions tickets behind in the gas station where he bought them.

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A good Samaritan — unaware that one of them was about to be worth $273 million — turned them into the cashier at the Quick Check in Phillipsburg, who then held them for the man.

On Thursday, Mike Weirsky was revealed as the Garden State’s luckiest resident.

“[I was] paying more attention to my cellphone,” the 54-year-old said at a press conference to collect his jumbo check. “I put the tickets down. Put my money away and [there was] something with my phone… and just walked away.

“I’m looking for the guy that handed them in,” Weirsky said. “I’m gonna give him something.”

The drawing was Friday and Weirsky found out on Sunday that he’d won the top prize.

“It’s going to change everything because I was unemployed,” said Weirsky about the $162.5 million lump sum he’ll be collecting.

Weirsky got divorced in October, after a 15-year marriage where his wife worked but he didn’t, he said. He’s been looking for a job for the last year, but never got an interview, he said.

“I always wanted to know what it would be like to be able to just wake up and be able to go somewhere, buy something. And when I get the money I’m going to do that.”

The first thing Weirsky plans on buying is a Ford Raptor pick-up truck.

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