Judge Rules Boss Must Give Waiter Half of $1.7M Lottery Jackpot for Predicting Win

A judge in England ruled that a
restaurant owner must give half of his $
1.7 million lottery jackpot to an
employee who helped convince him to
play by predicting the win.
As a result, Fatih Ozcan stands to collect
about $857,000.
Turkish restaurant owner Hayati
Kucukkoylu bought a EuroMllions ticket
in January 2012 and won the jackpot.
Kucukkoylu paid for the ticket and chose
the winning numbers, but Ozcan insisted
that half of the winnings were his
because he went and physically
purchased the ticket after having a
premonition about Kucukkoylu’s good
fortune.
“He dreamt that he was holding a large
bundle of cash and standing in front of
him was his boss,” Judge Mark Gosnell
explained in his ruling. “Mr. Ozcan is a
strong believer in the power of dreams
and interpreted this to mean that he
and Mr. Kucukkoylu would win the
lottery.”
The employee “pestered” his boss for
three hours before he decided to
purchase the winning EuroMllions ticket,
the Telegraph reported .
“I find that the effect of these
conversations was that Mr. Kucukkoylu
and Mr. Ozcan entered into a contract
to jointly play the lottery on an equal
basis,” Gosnell said. “There should be a
declaration that the prize money from
this winning lottery ticket should be
shared equally between Mr. Kucukkoylu
and Mr. Ozcan.”