Many people dream of winning the lottery, but one player's dream was so vivid that he bought a ticket using the numbers he'd seen while he was sleeping – and promptly won $250,000.
Alonzo Coleman, of Henrico, Virginia, spent just $2 to place the bet that scooped him a cool quarter of a million dollars after playing a seemingly unlikely number sequence, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18. The numbers had come to him in a dream, so he went to a local store and bought a lottery ticket at the Glenside Corner Mart.
But even more incredibly, those exact numbers came up for the Virginia Lottery's Bank a Million game, along with a bonus ball of 19 that completed the numerical sequence, although Coleman didn't pick 19 for the bonus ball.
Coleman, a retiree whose age was not released, told stunned lottery officials he had dreamt of the winning numbers beforehand. Describing the moment he realized his dream had come true, he added: "It was hard to believe! It still hasn't hit me yet!"
He grinned and raised his arms jubilantly as he posed with a giant $250,000 check, his smile at odds with his "I am a grumpy old man" T-shirt.
Coleman had split his $2 wager four ways when he bought the ticket, meaning he had four sets of numbers. Using the "Play Your Way" feature, he won $250,000 after taxes on one of his sets of numbers.
He won during the June 11 drawing, but the news was only announced by lottery officials on Thursday.
Virginia's Bank a Million game has drawings on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 11 p.m. The three top prizes, of $1 million, $500,000 and $250,000, are calculated so that winners receive the prize amount after federal and state tax withholdings. The odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 3.8 million.
The Virginia Lottery has been running since voters gave it the go-ahead in a referendum in 1987, and it generates more than $2 million per day for Virginia's schools. A spokesperson for the lottery said in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, lottery customers helped generate more than $765 million in funding for public education.
Newsweek has reached out to Coleman through the Virginia Lottery.
Coleman's success follows some other major lottery wins, with players attributing their good fortune to mysterious forces. A player orphaned as a teenager said he felt his parents were watching over him when he won $1.2 million playing the lottery. British dad Calum Forrington, 37, and his wife Kayleigh plan to splash the cash on a surprise trip to Disneyland for their three children.
A Florida man credited his pregnant dachshund with his good luck after he won the top prize of $2 million from a scratch-off lottery ticket. Leonard Linton, 42, said he only bought the ticket on a whim because he had to take a different route home than normal to be with his dog.
