Walid Aboroomi, 50, wants the entire world to know he’s just won the lottery for a miraculous FOURTH TIME. Back in 2007 he 200 ‘Pick-3’ tickets in Virginia and won $100,000. Before that the Israeli immigrant won $500,000 in a scratch off ticket in the Fall of 2004, AND in 2005 he won $1 MILLION on a scratch off in the ‘Virginia Million Dollar Madness scratch-off game’. This dude’s obviously the luckiest man alive, right? WRONG.
On May 28th, Mr. Aboroomi purchased 184 tickets in the $1/ticket ‘Cash 3’ game, and his numbers hit which would have yielded a $92,000 payout had he not completely lost the lottery tickets. That’s right, his 184 tickets all went missing, likely in the trash. His story of winning and trying to recover his lost tickets is actually pretty hilarious, and you won’t feel bad for him at all, I promise.
Aboroomi has owned the BP service station and convenience store on Cross Creek Boulevard for six months, and on the night of May 28, he felt lucky. He noticed the time: 7:15 p.m.; a glimpse of a license plate in the parking lot, 715. And most importantly, his birthday: July 15.
“Everything was 715,” he said. “It was blowing my brain.”
Something about this seemed eerily familiar, too.
In 2007, Aboroomi won a Pick 3 lottery in Virginia for $100,000 after buying nearly 200 tickets with 715 as the winning number.
He felt the same sort of luck on May 28, he said.
The time was right, he said, to make a play.
“At times,” said the 50-year-old Israeli immigrant who has been in the United States for 27 years, “you just feel lucky.”
So when customers cleared out, he started printing out Cash 3 tickets with 715 as the number of choice.
He ended up buying 184 of them, at $1 each, stopping only when a customer came in.
The next day, another customer showed up and told him he thought Aboroomi’s numbers had come up the night before. The shopkeeper checked, and 715 indeed had been drawn. In that order. With each ticket worth $500, that was a $92,000 windfall.
Then, his luck ran out.
He looked for the tickets. They were nowhere to be found.
He looked in the garbage. Not there. Checked under a loose countertop. Not there. Under carpets. Not there. In the bathroom. Not there. He asked his wife and children. Nope.
Aboroomi went to the big trash container outside the store and dove in. Nothing.
He called his garbage hauler, saying he had lost a ring, and found out that all the trash from that location goes to an incinerator.
“I searched every place,” he said. “Finally, I gave up. I was crying, crying like a baby.”
He called the Florida Lottery and was told that to make a claim, he must have the tickets, like 2,827 other people who picked 715 and claimed a prize from that drawing. The payout for that drawing totaled $449,685, state lottery officials said.Aboroomi doesn’t appear to be bitter. He can’t complain. He’s been a frequent lottery player and a big winner.
He was featured in a 2007 Washington Post article that said after Aboroomi won a $100,000 Pick 3 prize, he spent $17,000 on a new diamond ring for his fiancee and made donations to local churches and homeless shelters. Less than a year earlier, he won $71,000 after buying 162 Pick 3 tickets with, that’s right, the 715 number.
That’s not his only win. In 2005, he won $1 million playing the Virginia Million Dollar Madness scratch-off game, the story said, and he won $500,000 in a scratch-off jackpot in fall 2004.
NO SH*T he doesn’t appear to be bitter! The dude’s already won over a million dollars in his lifetime just playing the lottery. It seems like he wouldn’t be where he is today without hitting all those lottery jackpots. This seems like karma smacking him in the fact for getting TOO GREEDY. Seriously, how much does one man deserve to win over the course of a lifetime? Whatever it is, this man’s already won enough.
That said, I’d be bitter as hell if I was him. So props to Walid Aboroomi for not choking on sour grapes. As for me not having one the ‘cash money lottery’ yet, this is all I have to say about that:
For more on this story you can click on over to The Tampa Tribune by following the link above!