Tampa man out $92,000 after losing winning lottery tickets

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – A Tampa service station owner is out of luck after losing Florida Lottery Cash 3 tickets worth $92,000.

Walid Aboroomi told The Tampa Tribune (http://bit.ly/1GYpcPA ) he’s won thousands playing his birthday numbers – 715. On May 28, he felt lucky. Aboroomi said he noticed the time: 7:15 p.m.; a glimpse of a license plate in the parking lot, 715. Most importantly, his birthday: July 15.

“Everything was 715,” Aboroomi said. “It was blowing my brain.”

In 2007, Aboroomi won a Pick 3 lottery in Virginia for $100,000 after buying nearly 200 tickets with 715 as the winning number.

Aboroomi said he felt the same sort of luck on May 28 and bought 184 $1 tickets bearing the numbers.

“At times you just feel lucky,” said the 50-year-old Israeli immigrant who has been in the United States for 27 years.

The next morning a customer told him he thought Aboroomi’s numbers were drawn the night before. Each ticket was worth $500, resulting in a $92,000 windfall.

But that’s when Aboroomi’s luck ran out. He couldn’t find his tickets anywhere.

“I searched every place,” Aboroomi said. “Finally, I gave up. I was crying, crying like a baby.”

He even called his garbage hauler, saying he had lost a ring, and found out that all the trash from that location goes to an incinerator.

Aboroomi has a ticket from the lottery machine showing 184 tickets were sold on May 28. But lottery officials told him he must have the tickets to get the cash.

Aboroomi said even with his lost tickets, he realizes how lucky he’s been.

Less than a year before winning the $100,000 Pick 3 prize in 2007, he won $71,000 after buying 162 Pick 3 tickets with the 715 number.

That’s not his only win. In 2005, he won $1 million playing the Virginia Million Dollar Madness scratch-off game, and he won $500,000 in a scratch-off jackpot in fall 2004.

“Yeah,” Aboroomi said, “I’m not hungry.”