Worker plucks €1m lottery ticket from six tonnes of waste after Bitonto player bins it by mistake

An Italian lottery player in Bitonto, in the southern region of Apulia, came within hours of losing a €1m prize after discarding a winning ticket by mistake. The episode, which unfolded over the last weekend of July and the first days of August, ended early on Tuesday morning when a sanitation worker pulled the intact slip from a torn rubbish bag.

The misunderstanding at the shop

After a draw on 31 July, the player checked a ticket at a local shop and saw a message reading 'non-payable'. Believing it signalled no prize, the ticket was thrown away. In reality the terminal displays that message when a payout exceeds the amount a retail outlet can settle, as several Italian outlets subsequently explained. SANB director Roberto Nicola Toscano, whose company handles waste collection in the area, said the player had played the same numbers for years because they were tied to the memory of a loved one, and the mix-up became clear only after a relative pointed out that the combination 2, 4, 8, 10 and 51 had been drawn.

“It was then that he realised the misunderstanding. So they all went to the shop together and discovered that the tickets had been thrown away and collected by one of our operators.”

Chasing the bin lorry

The family returned to the shop quickly, but the bin had already been emptied and the load collected. They contacted SANB, and staff identified the correct truck. Because the loss occurred on a Sunday, the vehicle had not yet discharged its contents into a compactor. Toscano told Italian broadcaster TGCOM24 that otherwise the six-tonne load would have already gone to landfill. The truck was placed under guard and escorted to an authorised facility where it could be emptied safely.

“Luckily it was a Sunday, otherwise the load would have already ended up in landfill.”

Two days of searching through waste

Around 10 operators sifted through the contents for more than a day. Toscano described a false alarm when a different ticket was mistaken for the winner. The genuine slip was finally located about 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday inside a hole-ridden bag alongside numerous damaged tickets; it was one of the few that stayed whole. Toscano said he joked with colleagues afterward and bought a scratch card, which returned a €50 win.

“It was in a hole-ridden bag along with other damaged tickets: this was one of the few intact ones.”

Winner covers the bill

Because SANB is a public company, the cost of the recovery cannot fall on taxpayers. The winner had signed a declaration promising to pay all expenses linked to the search. Toscano said the player cried with relief when told the ticket had been found, and charged him with passing thanks to the entire team.