A lottery player who accidentally threw out a €1 million ($1.15 million) winning lottery ticket may be the luckiest person in Italy after sanitation workers found the missing ticket. The anonymous player disposed of the ticket in a shop in Bitonto in southern Italy after checking his numbers and being told it was “non-payable.” The man only realized he threw away a winning ticket after a relative pointed out that the numbers they always played had been drawn. The “non-payable” message appears when the prize is too high to be paid out by the shop, but the player misunderstood the notice, assuming it meant the ticket wasn't a winner. The news sparked a 2-day search through a mountain of waste that had been collected by a garbage truck. "Fortunately, it was a Sunday; otherwise, the load would have already ended up in the landfill,” explained Roberto Nicola Toscano (pictured), head of the trash company. The truck was escorted to a special site where the search began. Workers began cheering as if they had won the prize themselves when the ticket was located. The player’s luck must have rubbed off on the sanitation workers. They bought a scratch-off ticket and won €50 ($57.72).
