Daniel Blanco was at the Washington State Lottery headquarters in Olympia on Thursday.
By Amelia Dickson
The Olympian
OLYMPIA — Daniel Blanco doesn’t play the lottery often.
The Pasco resident said he buys tickets only on special occasions: birthdays, Christmas and other holidays. He had never purchased a Lotto ticket but decided to buy one on a whim while doing some last-minute shopping last weekend.
He purchased two tickets, one for his brother and one for himself. He stuck the tickets on the fridge and forgot about them until Sunday night, when he decided to check his numbers: 25, 30, 32, 46, 54 and 26.
To his surprise, he was the winner of the $5.7 million jackpot.
“I yelled at (his brother) to come verify,” Blanco said at a news conference at the state lottery headquarters on Thursday. “They both took turns checking the numbers and rechecking the numbers.”
Blanco had a one in 175 million chance of winning the Lotto, Washington Lottery said.
He doesn’t consider himself a particularly lucky person. Before winning the jackpot, he had only ever won concert tickets in a radio-station contest.
But, in this case, Blanco said he has no choice but to attribute his winnings to dumb luck.
That lottery ticket will change his and his familys lives forever, allowing him to pay off his mortgage.
“(I’ll) make sure my family is taken care of,” Blanco said. “Family comes first.”
He will continue to work but Daniel Blanco said he’s not sure what he’ll do with his free time.
Daniel purchased his winning Lotto ticket at a Conoco store, located on State Route 240 in Richland. The store will receive a $50,000 selling bonus, according to Washington’s Lottery.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.