'I just got lazy,' $50,000 Powerball winner cashes in ticket 9 days before it expires
HUDSON - Danny Thomas of Hudson beat the odds playing the lottery, but he barely beat the clock when it came to collecting his prize.
Last week, the Massachusetts State Lottery issued a reminder about expiring lottery prizes. One was a $50,000 Powerball ticket that hadn't been collected.
It was bought on June 22, 2022 at a gas station in Hudson.
Thomas has a habit of buying lottery tickets and then never checking them.
"I just got lazy, and I had a stack about this thick," he told WBZ-TV, holding his fingers far apart.
He said he heard somebody talking about the unclaimed prizes on the radio. So he and his wife Eva started going through that stack of old lottery tickets and checked the state lottery website.
The Powerball ticket he bought way back on June 22 was a $50,000 winner. He cashed it in nine days before it would expire.
The couple took home $35,000 after taxes and they now plan to buy a new car.
"It's a good feeling to finally win something decent," Thomas said. "From now on, I'll stay on top of it and whenever I buy a ticket, I will check."
Thomas said he also won $20,000 in the lottery back in 2004.
There are still two unclaimed $100,000 Mass Cash prizes. One expires next week, the other is up next month.