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FILE - This July 1, 2016, file photo shows Mega Millions lottery tickets on a counter at a Pilot travel center near Burlington, N.C. After nearly three months without a winner, the Mega Millions lottery game has climbed to an estimated $654 million jackpot. Unfortunately, even as the big prize for its drawing Tuesday night, Oct. 16, 2018, increases to the fourth-largest in U.S. history , the odds of matching all six numbers and winning the game don't improve. They're stuck at a miserable one in 302.5 million.
SOURCE: Gerry Broome/AP
Why do you think they're called fortune cookies?
After his weekly meal at a Chinese restaurant, a North Carolina man used the numbers in his fortune cookie to play the lottery.
And now he is $4 million richer.
"I don't usually play my fortune cookie numbers but I tried them on a whim," said Gabriel Fierro, 60, of Cornelius, a disabled combat veteran who served 32 years in the Army, in a release from the North Carolina Education Lottery.
Fierro and his wife had their weekly meal at Charlotte's Red Bowl restaurant. He then used the numbers to buy a Mega Millions ticket online and added $1 to make it a Megaplier ticket. So when he matched all five white balls on Jan. 18 to win $1 million, it was quadrupled.
His $4 million prize became the largest win in the history of Online Play in North Carolina, the lottery said.
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