A USD 1 million lotto winner has told how he was so thrilled he stayed awake all night after checking his winning ticket.

Amazed Lloyd Armstrong from Columbia, North Carolina, USA, was on his way to play pool when he stopped to buy petrol and a lottery ticket on Friday night, 17th November.

But after buying the USD 2 (GBP 1.6) Powerball ticket at the Duck Thru Food Store he put it in his pocket and completely forgot about it.

And it wasn’t until his wife told him two days later that someone from their neighbourhood had scooped a million on the same game.

Lloyd, who works as an insurance agent, recalled thinking at the time: “Okay, wow. I really need to check my ticket.”

He and his wife were stunned when they saw their numbers matched all five white balls from the drawing.

Lloyd said: “We looked at each other and said, ‘What are we going to do now?’

“We could hardly sleep last night.”

He collected USD 712,501 [GBP 569,423] after state and federal taxes at the North Carolina lottery headquarters in the city of Raleigh on 20th November.

Lloyd said he is going to get advice from a financial planner to help make the most of the cash after paying off bills, donating to his church, and taking a family holiday in Scotland.

North Carolina Education Lottery said: “Both the Powerball and the Mega Million games offer major jackpots this week.

“Tuesday’s Mega Millions jackpot stands at USD 289 million [GBP 230 million] as an annuity or USD 132 million [GBP 105 million] cash.

” Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot stands at USD 313 million [GBP 250 million] as an annuity, or USD 144 million [GBP 115 million] in cash.

“The odds of winning a Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million. The odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302 million.”