Italian 18-year-old wins 2 million euros with a 10-euro scratch card bought after work

A ticket bought after work

Michele, an 18-year-old who lives in Marzocca, a frazione of Senigallia in the Marche region, has won 2 million euros with a scratch card that cost him 10 euros. The win came on Monday, 2 November, and Italian and Romanian outlets reported it on 4 and 5 November. Michele is in the final year at the Panzini hotel institute and works two hours a day, from 18:00 to 20:00, at a bar-tobacconist called Ventiquattro on State Road 16 in Montemarciano. His mother works as a carer and his father is a craftsman, and the family cites the pressure of the economic crisis as the reason he takes the job. He has not yet collected the prize. The card, from the 'Giochi di Natale' series, was offered to him by a colleague named Pasquale, who also works at the bar.

How the win was revealed

Michele's mother usually collects him at about 20:00, and on this occasion he waited for her arrival before he scratched the card. The pair scratched the ticket together inside the family car, and within seconds both were in tears. They then went back into the bar to share the news with colleagues and customers, before driving home to tell his father, Francesco, and his younger sister. One report names his mother as Pia. The family checked the ticket carefully before celebrating the win at home, and the news spread through local and national Italian media within two days.

Plans for the prize

The family says it intends to move back to Chiaravalle, where it lived for 25 years, and buy a house there. Michele has said the win will not change their lifestyle radically, and that the family will remain modest and hardworking, perhaps only calmer. His father, Francesco, said the family is also considering opening a restaurant together, since his son is passionate about food and is a skilled cook. Michele prepares snacks and serves customers at the bar, and he has thanked the owners for letting him work around his school schedule. Using the family's own estimate, about 1.6 million euros would remain from the gross 2 million after tax.

Gross prize2

Estimated after tax1.6

Gross prize

2 million euros

Estimated after tax

1.6 million euros

Data from the article text

Payment and background

Payment could take between 60 and 90 days, and Michele and his parents say they are in no hurry to receive the money. The prize is reported as a gross figure, so the post-tax amount is the family's estimate rather than a confirmed sum. Michele's father described the win as a stroke of good luck and said the family must thank God for it. One report also notes that at the start of 2026 a pensioner in Italy won 1.8 million euros on an envelope scratch card, which the family's story is compared with in the coverage.