He accidentally threw away a winning ticket worth 1 million
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8 Aug 2026 •
Reading time: 3 minutes
An Italian player nearly lost a €1 million prize after accidentally throwing away his lottery ticket. To recover it, staff had to sift through six tonnes of rubbish in Bitonto, in southern Italy.
A €1 million ticket amidst six tonnes of rubbish
The story took place in Bitonto, a town in the Puglia region of southern Italy. The winner had been playing the same combination of numbers for years because of their connection to a loved one. On Friday 31 July, during the 8.30 pm MillionDay draw, his five numbers finally came up: 2, 4, 8, 10 and 51. This combination entitled him to the top prize of one million euros.
When he had his ticket checked at the retailer’s, the terminal displayed a message stating that the prize was ‘not payable’. The player interpreted this as confirmation that his ticket was worthless. In reality, it meant exactly the opposite in this situation: the amount won was too large to be paid out directly by the retailer.
Convinced he had lost, the player left his ticket behind before heading home. It was members of his family who subsequently noticed that the numbers he usually played had been drawn. The player then realised his mistake and returned to the retailer.
It was already too late: the discarded tickets had, in the meantime, been collected by the refuse collection service.
An extraordinary operation to recover the ticket
Sanb, the company responsible for waste collection and transport in Bitonto and several neighbouring municipalities, then embarked on an unusual recovery operation.
Its teams retraced the route taken by the waste in order to identify the vehicle that had carried away the precious ticket. Once the correct load had been located, its processing was halted and a search was organised at an authorised facility.
The employees were faced with around six tonnes of waste and had to find a piece of paper measuring just a few centimetres. The winner had also agreed to cover the additional costs incurred by the recovery operation.
After hours of searching, the one-million-euro ticket was finally found at around 5.30 am. Despite having been through the waste, it was still intact. This was a stroke of luck for its owner, as several other tickets found nearby had been damaged.
Roberto Nicola Toscano, sole director of Sanb, summed up the incident with a touch of humour:
“It’s often said that waste can be a resource. Well… someone decided to take that expression far too literally.”
A story that ends with another win
After finding the precious ticket, the staff celebrated the success of the operation over a coffee.
They then decided, just for fun, to buy a scratchcard. Another stroke of luck: this one won them 50 euros.