Mambo ya Leo

Colorado couple thought they were millionaires

The Spragues--a retired couple in Pueblo, Colo.--have better reason than most of us to ponder the old saw, "easy come, easy go." For an exhilarating hour or so last weekend, the Spragues opened up the Sunday paper to discover that they had won more than $4 million in the Colorado Lotto.

There was just one problem, however: The newspaper had printed the wrong numbers.

Dorothy Sprague told The Lookout she was in the kitchen when her husband, a retired teacher and plumbing shop owner, checked the numbers in the Sunday edition of the Pueblo Chieftain.
"He was checking them off and he says, 'Oh at least I got three--we got a winner this time! Oh wow, there's four, five, six.' And I said no, that can't be right. He said 'Come look,' because I was still doing things in the kitchen and then sure enough it was all six numbers.
I couldn't wrap my mind around 4 million. I just said, 'No that's unreal.' "

Sprague and her husband Jim decided they wouldn't tell anybody until they were sure, except for their daughter, who was home visiting.
"We don't do the Internet or the computer or anything and my husband says, 'I got to tell somebody,' so we told her. We were discussing it and talking and then one of us said, maybe there's more than one winner. And she said, 'Why I don't check on the Internet?' So she went on her laptop and she checked the numbers and they were wrong."
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