--- title: Man Bought $30K Lottery Ticket on Accident description: A Connecticut man won $30,000 on Thursday when he accidentally bought the wrong lottery ticket. canonical: https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-29T18:15:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:22.123Z og:title: Man Bought $30,000 Lottery Ticket by Accident og:description: He meant to buy a different ticket but didn't have his glasses on og:url: https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d17f75415d92867/698858ea524fc035d9df3596/sabo_061815.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: sabo_061815 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Man Bought $30,000 Lottery Ticket by Accident twitter:description: He meant to buy a different ticket but didn't have his glasses on twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d17f75415d92867/698858ea524fc035d9df3596/sabo_061815.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Man Bought $30K Lottery Ticket by Accident ## Video: 5 Elements of A Viral Video [Watch (HLS stream): 5 Elements of A Viral Video](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vgQtqA8c.m3u8) (1:31)  _Published 2015-06-22. 5 Elements of A Viral Video_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jun 29, 2015 6:15 PM UTC  Bob Sabo becomes a “30X Cash 2nd Edition” instant game top prize winner. Bob Sabo becomes a “30X Cash 2nd Edition” instant game top prize winner.CT Lottery by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jun 29, 2015 6:15 PM UTC A Connecticut man won $30,000 last week when he accidentally bought the wrong lottery ticket. Bob Sabo didn’t want to wait in line at the Super Stop & Shop in Fairfield, Conn. to buy his lottery ticket, so he decided to purchase one from the lottery vending machine. He intended to buy two $20 tickets, but since he didn’t have his glasses on, he accidentally purchased one $30 ticket. “When I got home and scratched the 30X ticket, I couldn’t believe it—we won $30,000\. Winning the way we did was a very freaky thing!” Sabo [told the CT Lottery](https://www.ctlottery.org/Modules/Winners/detail.aspx?cid=392830). Don’t we all wish we made mistakes like that. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/"},"headline":"Man Bought $30K Lottery Ticket by Accident","datePublished":"2015-06-29T18:15:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:22.123Z","description":"He meant to buy a different ticket but didn't have his glasses on","url":"https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Appreciation","Lottery"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d17f75415d92867/698858ea524fc035d9df3596/sabo_061815.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d17f75415d92867/698858ea524fc035d9df3596/sabo_061815.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"sabo_061815","caption":"Bob Sabo becomes a “30X Cash 2nd Edition” instant game top prize winner.","creditText":"CT Lottery","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/","name":"Man Bought $30K Lottery Ticket by Accident"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"5 Elements of A Viral Video","description":"5 Elements of A Viral Video","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/vgQtqA8c/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-06-22T13:42:30.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vgQtqA8c.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/","duration":"PT1M31S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3940252/man-lottery-accident/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```