Florida man, Stephen Espinoza, wins lotto
A Florida man won $1 million on a lottery ticket after a rude stranger cut him in line at a Delray Beach grocery store, according to reports.
Stephen Munoz Espinoza said he was exhausted following a day of work and was looking to buy a lottery ticket when he was cut in line at the ticket machine.
Espinoza, 43, ultimately decided to avoid a confrontation with the other lotto customer, and opted to instead buy his ticket at the counter inside Publix Super Market, the New York Post reports.
He says it had been a long day and was too tired to confront the line-skipper over taking his place at the ticket machine.
“It was the end of a long day, and I was tired,” Espinoza said.
Espinoza had bought a $50 ticket for the “500X The Cash” game, which boasts a top prize of $25 million. He ultimately chose to receive his winnings in a one-time lump sum payday.
That turned out to be a whopping $828,000.
“I can’t believe I won a million dollars!” Espinoza said.
Upon learning of his winning ticket, Espinoza says he immediately got in his car and drove to the Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee, where he claimed his prize and realized it was all true.
Espinoza says he plans on using his lottery winnings on a house for his family, the outlet reports.
Not every lottery winner’s story is as positive as Espinoza, in fact many times lottery winners end up worse for the wear following their lottery wins.
Roughly 70 percent of all lottery winners, white or Black, lose it all within five years, regardless of how much their luck earns them, statistics show.
In May, The Shade Room reported that a North Carolina judge sentenced a man who won a $10 million prize on a scratch-off lottery ticket in 2017 to spend the rest of his life in prison just five years later. Michael Todd Hill, 54, will do a life bid in prison for the 2020 fatal shooting of his 23-year-old girlfriend.
On Friday, the befallen North Carolina lottery winner was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced without the possibility of parole in the 2020 fatal shooting of his former girlfriend, Keonna Graham, 23, WSPA reported.
According to the outlet, Graham was reported missing on July 20, 2020. She was later found dead at the SureStay Hotel in Shallotte, North Carolina. She had a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
The Shade Room had previously reported on six times African-Americans won the lottery.
