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Fortune cookie lives up to its name, as disabled ex-soldier wins $4 million in US

This article is more than 12 months old

A 60-year-old American went to eat at a Chinese restaurant in North Carolina with his wife and got a fortune cookie.

He used the numbers he found in it to bet on a lottery and won.

Mr Gabriel Fierro, who retired from the US army as a disabled combat veteran after 32 years of service, is a regular at the restaurant but doesn’t usually play the cookie numbers.

“I tried them on a whim,” he was quoted as saying in US media reports.

He played a $4 Multiplier Mega Millions ticket for a US$ 4 million prize, and after taxes, took home US$2.84 million (S$3.85 million).

"I got an e-mail in the morning and I just stared at it dumbfounded," he said.

He showed it to his wife, who thought it must be some joke or a scam.

When they realised it was for real, they “started running around the house screaming”.

After he collected the money at the lottery headquarters, he said he planned to invest most of it, though he had one immediate purchase in mind.

“We are going to buy some champagne on the way home,” he said.

And if you want to check out the restaurant and its fortune cookies when in the US, it is called the Red Bowl, and it is in the city of Charlotte.

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