Dad's birthday gift to teen daughter makes her a millionaire

What started out as a lame birthday gift turned into the once-in-a-lifetime present this teen will never forget.

Deisi Ocampo’s father gave her two $20 Illinois Lottery tickets for her 19th birthday last week.

One of those $100 Million Money Mania scratch cards was worth $4 million.

"It turned out to be the best birthday present ever!" Ocampo said Friday morning when presented with a cheque at the Chicago gas station where her father bought the tickets, reported WLS-TV.

Ocampo told reporters that she plans to use her newfound fortune to “buy a new house for my family and pursue my dream of completing my degree and becoming a nurse.”

Ocampo isn’t the first teen to strike it rich on the lottery.

In 2012, then-19-year-old Ryan Kitching finally gave in to his mother’s nagging and cleaned his room. In a drawer, he found 12 old lottery tickets, one of which was a winner.

Cleaning his room won him £53,000 ($96,00 CAD).

"Next time she nags me to tidy my room I won’t need telling twice," he said, adding that the day he won the lottery “was the happiest day of my life easily.”

Kitching planned to use the money as a deposit on his own place — and to treat his parents to a holiday.

The Telegraph lists two other teen lottery winners in recent years who made poor decisions after becoming millionaires. Michael Carroll and Callie Rogers, both big winners, squandered their fortunes on drugs and partying and now have little to show for their wins, save for Rogers’ breast implants.

Ocampo’s “lofty ambitions" will hopefully prevent her from becoming another cautionary tale.