NEED TO KNOW
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Armando Vidal won $1 million from playing the California Lottery’s Triple Red 777 Scratchers game when he was homeless
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Vidal learned he won that amount after a store manager asked him, “What are you going to do with a million dollars?”
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The San Luis Obispo man now plans to find a permanent home, adopt a couple of dogs and invest some of his winnings
A homeless man who won $1 million from playing the California Lottery’s Triple Red 777 Scratchers game initially thought he had won $200.
However, when Armando Vidal brought his winning scratch-off ticket into Sandy’s Deli & Liquor in San Luis Obispo in April to confirm his winnings, store manager Wilson Samaan asked him something he couldn’t believe.
“What are you going to do with a million dollars?” Samaan asked Vidal, a regular at the store, according to a California Lottery press release.
A surprised Vidal recalled replying at the time, “I was like, huh? And that’s how I found out that I’d won a million dollars.”
CA Lottery
Sandy’s Deli & Liquor in San Luis Obispo
The store manager eventually drove Vidal to Fresno, where the California Lottery office is located, to verify and claim his winnings.
Now, three months later, Vidal revealed how he plans to spend the money he won from buying two $5 scratch-off tickets.
“Vidal is working to secure a place to go home to, with a bed, a couple of dogs, and he also plans to invest his winnings to keep the money coming in,” the California Lottery shared in its release. “After his win went viral in April, Vidal also plans to keep a much lower profile in the future.”
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Vidal also told the lottery organization that he had become homeless after an injury left him unemployed in Santa Maria in 2008.
After that, Vidal moved to San Luis Obispo and became a regular at Sandy’s, where years later he bought his winning lottery ticket.
“I just can’t wait to get off the streets,” Vidal said in April, as seen in a video posted to Instagram by local store Thrifty Beaches.
Read the original article on People
