Veteran’s wife didn’t want him to buy Idaho lottery ticket. But she had the magic touch

A Vietnam veteran didn’t listen when his wife told him not to buy more lottery tickets, and he credits her as the “good luck” charm that brought on their win in Idaho.

Winner John Ireland told Idaho Lottery he plays “a few draw games every couple of weeks for fun and is quite content breaking even,” but never thought he’d win big.

“I don’t know, I just had a feeling,” he told lottery officials, according to a Jan. 4 Facebook post from Idaho Lottery. “My wife, Olga, didn’t want me to buy any more tickets. I just bought a Powerball and Weekly Grand at Fred Meyer’s, and she said that was my limit!”

While they were at Ridley’s Family Market in Middleton, he told her about the strong “feeling” he had.

“The funny thing is, I never play $10 Cash Spot. Something inside of me just really felt like I should, so I gave the clerk the cash and Olga pressed the button for me,” Ireland told officials.

He explained that during his service in Vietnam, he was exposed to Agent Orange and lost feeling in his hands and feet. That’s why Olga pressed the button for him, even though she didn’t want him to buy more tickets in the first place.

“I think she was my good luck,” he told officials. “No, I know she was my good luck. Always has been.”

Ireland brought Olga with him to collect his $94,471 in winnings, and told officials a snippet of their love story. He was traveling in Peru for work, where Olga was born and raised, and the rest is history.

They’ve been married for 35 years, and out of the many countries they visited, they chose to retire in Idaho because it was the “only place they thought truly felt like home.”

They plan to use the money to pay off some bills and then donate a sizable portion to their church in Caldwell.

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