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Pennsylvania man’s get-well card from father contains winning lottery ticket worth $7 million

$7-million scratch lottery ticket

While Joseph Amorese was recovering from hernia surgery last month, his father sent him a get-well card. Inside was a scratch-off Lottery ticket.

While receiving a lottery ticket from his father was nothing new — his retired father frequently sends him tickets — receiving a winning one was: the ticket was a $7-million winner in the “Golden Ticket” game (after taxes, the total prize is about $4.6 million).

"I took my glasses off, I’m looking at it, I was pretty shocked to say the least," Amorese told reporters at a press conference. “I had surgery so I didn’t jump up and down, but in my mind I was jumping up and down.”

Amorese immediately sent his father a photo of the winning ticket.

“Do I usually include a ticket? Yeah,” Amorese’s father told ABC News, refusing to say if his son will share the jackpot with him. “I’m retired and I have time on my hands. You know, you want them to get something but if they get $100, they’ll be happy. Most of us don’t usually think you’re going to hit the jackpot.”

"I just wish him the very, very best, and I’m happy for him," he added.

Then Amorese called his wife, Jodi, a social worker:

“I said, Honey, I think we won $7,000,000. And there was silence on the other end for a long time. She was too stunned to talk.”

On Wednesday morning, the Easton, Pennsylvania, man received a ceremonial cheque from at the Just A Dollar store in New York City, where the ticket was originally purchased.

Amorese, who works for Verizon, will celebrate his first anniversary with his wife this May. They have yet to announce any concrete plans for the money except to spend more time with family — and maybe go on a second honeymoon.

"It gives us a lot more freedom than we had before," Amorese said of the win, adding that retirement might now come a little sooner than he originally anticipated.

“My life, I don’t expect it to change a whole lot. I’m still going to go to work every day. My wife’s gonna go to work and we’re going to invest the money and enjoy life,” he said.

“[He] asked me what did I do to deserve this and I said because he’s a good person. Joseph struggled and put himself through school and made me a very proud momma,” said Amorese’s mother, Kathleen Michel..