Aussie finds year-old lottery ticket worth $781K while cleaning car

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- An Australian man cleaning out his car discovered a lottery ticket that made him a millionaire -- 414 days after the numbers were drawn.

The Newcastle man, whose name was not released, told New South Wales Lotteries officials that he was cleaning out his car when he discovered a 24-game QuickPick ticket that turned out to be one of four winners from a Jan. 9, 2016, drawing.

The man cashed in his ticket for $1,020,496.38 -- or $781,108.34 in U.S. dollars.

"I line the bottom of my reusable Aldi shopping bags with old beer cartons to give them some strength. The ticket was hidden in underneath it and I didn't know it was there!" he said. "I was cleaning rubbish out of my car on the weekend and thought it was time to put new cartons in the bottom of all my bags as they were starting to get torn and I got quite a surprise!"

"I'm glad I didn't just get the old bags and take them to the dump!" he continued. "I've done some pretty stupid things in my time!"

The man said he was shocked when he discovered that he could have been a millionaire a year ago.

"I thought I'd been pretty stupid. I was thinking 'Wow! I could've thrown this out!' It got very close," he said. "So I'm not worried that I could have had the money a year ago -- at least I've got it now. It might have remained anonymous until the year 3900!"