Then he quickly turned his back to the counter. He pretended to be focused on scratching the ticket in secret.
The shop owner saw Adam hiding his scratching. He let out a heavy sigh. This was common behavior for gamblers. "Hurry up" the owner said. "You have a lot of tickets. You bought almost all of them with that money. You still have a little bit of cash left over."
The man went to his cash register to get Adam's change.
While the owner was busy Adam continued his act. He pretended to take more tickets from the counter. But he was actually sending the real unscratched tickets directly into his inventory. They were stored there safe and untouched.
At the same time he was working inside his system. He pulled out the ten copied one-thousand-dollar winning tickets he had made earlier.
But he did not stop there. He used his skill to make even more copies of the thousand-dollar winner. The number of winning tickets in his possession grew.
After a few moments Adam turned back to the counter.
He casually threw ten winning tickets onto the counter. "Give me the money for these quickly" he said in an impatient voice. "I am scratching the other tickets now."
He said this and immediately turned his back again. He pretended to be busy with the rest of his tickets.
The shop owner was a little annoyed by the boy's attitude. He had not even looked at the tickets yet. He assumed the boy had probably won ten dollars again. Maybe a hundred dollars if he was extremely lucky.
But when he looked down at the counter his eyes went completely wide. He stared at the ten tickets. He saw the prize amount on the first one. One thousand dollars.
Then he looked at the second one. One thousand dollars. The third the fourth all of them. Every single ticket was a one-thousand-dollar winner.
He picked them up and started looking at them very closely. He held them up to the light. He ran his thumb over the surface. They felt real. They looked real.
The lottery company printed all tickets for the same prize amount to be perfectly identical. This was to prevent fraud. Because of this the shop owner could not tell that Adam had just copied the same ticket over and over. To him it just looked like the boy had won an impossible jackpot.
The shop owner was completely stunned. He had never seen anything like this. Without thinking he started handing over every single ticket he had in his shop to Adam.
Strip after strip box after box. In total there were about one thousand tickets in his entire store. He gave all of them to Adam.
Adam continued his strategy. He took the real unscratched tickets from the man. Then in return he would give the man a perfect copy of a one-thousand-dollar winning ticket. He repeated this process over and over.
After some time Adam had given the shop owner a huge pile of scratched winning tickets. He held the remaining unscratched tickets in his hand. He turned his back one last time and put them all into his inventory for later. All one thousand real tickets were now his.
The shop owner collapsed backward onto his stool. He looked pale and was sweating. "I scratched one ticket for myself" the man mumbled in disbelief. "But I only won one dollar." He sounded defeated.
He looked up at Adam. The boy was just standing there calmly. His arms were crossed over his chest. He looked like he owned the place.
"Mister shopkeeper" Adam said his voice was calm and steady. "Please give me my money."
The man's hands were shaking as he started to count the winning tickets on his counter. He counted them all. One thousand tickets. Each one was a one-thousand-dollar winner. He did the math in his head.
That meant... one million dollars. The realization hit him like a physical blow.
"One million dollars" he whispered. He was completely shocked. He looked at Adam with wide fearful eyes. "I... I only have ten thousand dollars here right now" he stammered.
"And it's not like I can just give you this money. The lottery company has to pay out big prizes like this. You will have to wait. It will take time." He was trying to delay.
Adam listened to the man's excuses. A small smile played on his lips. He thought to himself "If I were the old Adam I would have believed his words.
But I have lived a full life. I know how smart and tricky people like this can be." He knew the man was trying to find a way to cheat him out of his winnings.
Adam would not let anyone make a fool of him ever again.
The smile that was on Adam's face slowly disappeared.