Store ran out of lottery tickets Michigan man wanted, but fate was on his side

A little bit of bad luck turned out to be just the thing a Michigan lottery player needed to win big.

The 57-year-old Tuscola County man, who chose to remain anonymous, went into a Speedway gas station in Caro to buy a Triple Red 777s ticket, but the store was sold out, lottery officials said in a July 10 news release.

Unable to get the ticket he wanted, he settled for something different, a Detroit Tigers instant game scratch-off, the release said. But the man scratched off the ticket to reveal fate had been on his side the whole time. He won the jackpot.

“It was hard to believe when I saw I’d won $500,000, but after looking the ticket over several times, I told myself it must be real,” he told lottery officials.

“I signed the ticket and took it back into the store to have the cashier check it. After she scanned it, she handed it back and said: ‘Looks like you have to go to Lansing for this one!’” he said. “Winning $500,000 is an answered prayer and still hasn’t fully sunk in.”

After picking up his prize from lottery headquarters, he told officials he plans to invest the money and also help out family.

Caro is a roughly 90-mile drive north from Detroit.

This story was originally published July 10, 2025 at 2:54 PM with the headline "Store ran out of lottery tickets Michigan man wanted, but fate was on his side."