Winning lottery ticket was on man's table for a month

March 6 (UPI) -- A Saskatchewan man said he found a lottery ticket on his table that had already been scratched off and it turned out to be worth $744,845.

Bradley Nyhus of Ceylon told Western Canada Lottery Corp. officials the Set For Life scratch-off ticket he bought from Radville Co-op in Radville in late January was scratched off shortly after he bought it, but he somehow missed that it was a top prize winner.

"I don't know how I didn't see it at home when I originally had scratched it," Nyhus said. "It was laying on my table for three or four weeks, possibly more. I noticed it sitting there when I was on my way to an appointment and to get gas and a car wash."

Nyhus said he took the ticket and several others he had previously scratched off to scan at a ticket checker.

"I started scanning them on the ticket checker. I didn't win on the first few, then I saw a 1, a dash and all these zeroes," Nyhus recalled. "I thought it must be an error code."

He said he checked the ticket at a different machine just to make sure and confirmed he had won the top prize of $744.81 a week for 25 years, which he took as a lump sum option of $744,845.

"I'll use it to pay off the student loans for my three daughters. Beyond that, maybe invest the rest and look at retiring," Nyhus said. "I have a running joke with the clerk in Radville Co-op. I always say to her, 'Just once it would be nice to win.' Now here I am."