Judge rules boss must give waiter half of $1.7M lottery jackpot for predicting win

YORK, England, July 15 (UPI) -- A judge in England ruled that a restaurant owner must give half of his $1.7 million lottery jackpot to an employee who helped convince him to play by predicting the win.

As a result, Fatih Ozcan stands to collect about $857,000.

Turkish restaurant owner Hayati Kucukkoylu bought a EuroMllions ticket in January 2012 and won the jackpot.

Kucukkoylu paid for the ticket and chose the winning numbers, but Ozcan insisted that half of the winnings were his because he went and physically purchased the ticket after having a premonition about Kucukkoylu's good fortune.

"He dreamt that he was holding a large bundle of cash and standing in front of him was his boss," Judge Mark Gosnell explained in his ruling. "Mr. Ozcan is a strong believer in the power of dreams and interpreted this to mean that he and Mr. Kucukkoylu would win the lottery."

The employee "pestered" his boss for three hours before he decided to purchase the winning EuroMllions ticket, the Telegraph reported.

"I find that the effect of these conversations was that Mr. Kucukkoylu and Mr. Ozcan entered into a contract to jointly play the lottery on an equal basis," Gosnell said. "There should be a declaration that the prize money from this winning lottery ticket should be shared equally between Mr. Kucukkoylu and Mr. Ozcan."