Unlike most of us, Irving Przyborski didn't wait until April 14 to fill out his taxes this year. He got around to it in mid-March -- a decision that turned out to be worth nine million dollars.
Going through his tax documents, WBBM radio reports, Przyborski came across an old Illinois Lottery ticket from March of 2010. He had bought a number of tickets around that time, and went through most of them, finding no winners. But one of them had apparently fallen into his tax file inadvertently. After he unearthed the missing numbers, he took them to his local corner store, only to discover that he was suddenly, and narrowly, a millionaire.
The ticket was set to expire at 5 p.m. on March 24, nine days after his accidental find. Winning tickets are invalid one year after the drawing date.
As the Chicago Tribune reports, the ticket would have been by far the largest unclaimed sum in Illinois Lottery history. Lotto winnings that go unclaimed are donated to the state's education fund, which, according to LotteryPost.com, receives about $2 million a month of such unredeemed dollars.
Przyborski, whom Lottery spokeswoman Tracy Owens describes as "quiet" and "laid-back," took his winnings in a lump sum. He bought the winning ticket at a 7-Eleven at 107th and Ewing on Chicago's Southeast Side.