Nearly everyone has at least once in their life dreamt of winning the lottery, but only few among us will actually see it come true.
For Victor Amole, he literally had his dream become a reality when he won Virginia Lottery's Cash 5 game in January.
The Woodbridge, Virginia man bought four tickets but instead of trying his luck with different numbers, he used the same set of numbers on each of the tickets. Why?
Apparently he had a dream in which the winning numbers, 3-10-17-26-32, were revealed to him. "I've never had a dream like that before," Amole admitted.
Amole beat the 1 in 278, 256 odds when all four of his numbers hit the jackpot. Each ticket was worth $100,000 so he was awarded a total of $400,000 before taxes. The computer programmer, who is still reeling from his win, told Virginia Lottery that he plans to invest his winnings.
Winning the lottery with four tickets is almost unheard of, but what's even more brow-raising is Amole's claim that the numbers came to him in a dream. However, it turns out he isn't the only one who was lucky enough to see winning lottery numbers in his dream.
There have been a few other instances in which winners allegedly saw the lucky numbers in their dreams, including a family from New Jersey.
Here are 4 other times when lottery winners claimed to have seen the numbers in their dreams:
1. Mary Sanderson
In 1997, Mary Sanderson and her ex-husband won $66 million, and it was all thanks to Sanderson's dream a few nights prior.
"They came to me in a dream, and no, it didn't have anything to do with the Psychic Network," Sanderson joked. Unfortunately, her dreams did not reveal what was to follow. Her marriage hit the rocks shortly after, and a large portion of her jackpot was spent on lawyers and settlements after she failed to fulfil the pledges she made to a number of charities.
2. The Smith Family
In 2016, the Smith's from New Jersey walked away with the $429 million Powerball jackpot, but it was not an ordinary win. The family's spokesperson, Valerie Arthur revealed during the press conference that the winning numbers came to her mother in a dream.
3. The Taxi Driver
In 2005, Time magazine ran a story about a Pakistani migrant who decided to play the lottery with numbers he kept seeing in his dreams. Inshanullah Khan was working as a taxi driver in Washington when he first started having the recurring dream, but he did not act on it for 15 years. When he finally did, he won $55 million.
4. Mary Wollens
86-year-old Mary Wollens had a dream about a set of numbers she previously played in a quick pick ticket she purchased in 2006. The vivid dream convinced her to buy two tickets, and play those same numbers in each. The combination helped her two-thirds of the $24 million jackpot. Another player, who coincidentally played the same combination, took the rest of the winnings.