“Lightning never strikes the same place twice” is a phrase you are probably familiar with. It is commonly used to demonstrate that truly unlikely things generally only occur once, such as winning a lottery jackpot.

However, for Raymond Lillington, lightning did strike twice – and it struck even harder the second time.

Lillington first won $3.2 million thanks to the Lotto 6/49 jackpot on May 15, 2013. Seven years and three months later, on Aug. 15, 2020, he did it again, but this time for a whopping $17.4 million.

While the two jackpot wins were only seven years apart, it technically only took six for Lillington to win again, after taking one full year off from purchasing lottery tickets following his first win.

“I didn’t play for a long time after I won because I didn’t really think it was fair to other people,” Lillington said. “But it’s a fun pastime for me. I missed the excitement of checking my numbers, so I eventually started playing again.”

A mathematician Atlantic Lottery consulted said the exact odds of winning two jackpots are impossible to calculate because of the number of different factors involved, but the probability of winning two lottery jackpots would be approximately one in 10 million lifetimes. That’s a lot of lifetimes.

“I don’t think I’m going to be letting him out during any thunderstorms,” said Gaye, Lillington’s wife.

Raymond said he has a feeling that he would be just fine.

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