Man goes back to shop to return orange juice, emerges $315 million richer

When Tayeb Souami’s wife ordered him to return a carton of orange juice to their local shop, he presumably found the whole thing a bit of a hassle.

Little did he, or she, know that the penny-pinching act would scoop them a staggering $315 million (around £236 million) jackpot.

Souami, a married father-of-two, based in New Jersey was, at the time of his win – on 19 May, 2018 – an accountant for a food importer. But money was tight.

Then aged 56, he had just refinanced his home to cover the cost of his kids’ college tuition, and so he and his wife were doing their best to keep spending to a minimum.

That’s why, when he returned home with a $5 bottle of juice, his wife demanded that he take it back, insisting that it was “too expensive” and that he could get it for half the price elsewhere.

He got back into his car and trudged from their home in Little Ferry to the ShopRite in nearby Hackensack, where he queued to get his refund.

But as he stood in line he spotted an advert for the latest Powerball jackpot, and he decided to give it a go.

When the shop assistant returned his money for the juice, he used it to buy two tickets for the lottery – ostensibly defeating the whole purpose of his return to the store.

Clearly, he didn’t much fancy his chances of winning because he all but forgot about his gamble overnight.

It wasn’t until he took his car out to the local carwash the following day that he spotted a 7-Eleven store and remembered to check his tickets.

Scanning the papers on the shop’s lottery machines, he learnt that his first round of numbers wasn’t a winner.

However, when he scanned the second ticket, the screen flashed with a message which read: “Must be seen by the retailer.”

Thinking this was an error, he took the ticket to the cashier and told her there seemed to be an issue with the machine.

So the staff member scanned the receipt on her own system, and swiftly began uttering: “Oh my God, oh my God.”

She then told Souami that he’d won “big”. “Very big”. And he soon discovered that he had scooped the nine-figure prize.

Speaking at a press conference after the extraordinary win, the father-of-two confirmed that his priority was to use the money to support his son and daughter, then aged 20 and 17, with their education.

And whilst he didn’t voice any interest in splashing out on anything extravagant for his wife and himself, he suggested he would be buying a lot more juice.

“I love orange juice now,” he laughed.

The Independent