Hey, Millionaire!
Let's face it - times are tough.
Some people are lucky enough to become a millionaire pretty easily.
But most people are hustling just to put food on the table.
Winning the lottery is definitely the quickest way to become a millionaire, but that doesn't
mean it's easy.
Winning lottery tickets don't come around every day.
And if you do strike gold, you can't miss that chance because it's not gonna come around
again anytime soon.
Manuel Franco was one of those people that almost lost his big chance.
Manuel Franco was born in Milwaukee.
He had been playing the Powerball lottery in Wisconsin since his 18th birthday, when
he bought his first ever ticket.
He kept hoping that one day it would make him rich.
But he kept playing for years, and nothing happened.
At the age of 24, he says he was struggling to get his savings account balance up to just
$1,000.
His family couldn't help much - they weren't super wealthy either.
One ordinary day, as he was leaving work, he said he had a weird lucky feeling.
He described that feeling as not natural or normal, and I guess we can only believe him
because of what happened next.
Have you ever had a feeling like that, and it turned out to be right?
Tell us what happened in the comments!
And keep watching to find out how Manuel nearly lost it all.
Because of this feeling, he walked to the nearest Speedway on his way home from work.
He bought $10 worth of individual Powerball tickets.
He said he was feeling so sure he would win that, when he looked up at the camera on his
way out of the store, he almost winked.
Now that's confidence.
The next day, he went to work like normal.
But he couldn't concentrate.
He was nervous and sweating all day.
He hadn't watched the lottery draw, and he had no idea his life was about to change,
but he could feel something was different.
That would be the last day he ever went to work.
But the story almost ended in a very different way.
When he got home that afternoon, he learned that the jackpot-winning ticket had been purchased
in Milwaukee.
He was excited before, but that was a confirmation that the ticket might be his.
So he started checking the numbers on the tickets in his wallet.
One by one, he checked them carefully.
The third one was a winner, but it wasn't the win he was hoping for - it was worth just
$4.
He kept checking, and when the final ticket revealed nothing, he accepted that his lucky
feeling was wrong.
And that's how Manuel almost lost the jackpot-winning ticket which was literally in his hand!
He had no idea, but the winning ticket had got stuck to the back of one of the other
tickets he was holding.
He was the rightful owner of the third largest jackpot in US history - an unbelievable $768
million!
And he was just seconds away from tossing the ticket into the bin, not knowing it was
right in his hand the whole time.
Can you hit subscribe faster than Manuel threw out his winning lottery ticket?
You have 5 seconds...
5... 4... 3... 2... 1!
Now keep watching to find out what happened.
In a stroke of incredible luck, he put the tickets into his other hand.
And that's when he realized he was holding one ticket he hadn't checked.
So he had a closer look.
When he saw the first number matched the draw, he said he knew something special was happening
- because he never gets the first number.
When the second number and the Powerball matched too, he was starting to get excited.
And sure enough, the final 3 numbers matched too.
He says he was so excited that he just screamed for about 5 minutes.
He says his dad just cried a lot when he finally heard the news.
Manuel took the lump sum, which means he takes home a life-changing sum of $326 million after
taxes.
He says he's not going to be one of those lottery winners who blow their fortune and
end up broke in a few years.
He wants to live his life as normal as possible, and he also wants to use his new fortune to
help the world, as he puts it.
And that's really great, but there's a bigger moral to this story that we can all learn
from - always double-check your lottery tickets!