Unsurprisingly, when 57-year old retired fire fighter, Thomas Pyplatz from Munster, Indiana, received a call from FreeLotto to say that he had won $100,000 in their free daily lottery draw, he took it with a pinch of salt.

After a recent brush with a telephone scam, he wasn’t interested, despite signing up with FreeLotto.

Kevin Aronin, CEO of New York-based PlasmaNet, the parent company of FreeLotto, said that getting the money to Pyplatz's hands was far from easy. Pyplatz has so far received his first instalment cheque and the money has cleared into his account.

“It's a nice gift, and I'm going to pay off some bills and maybe my truck,” and added that it felt good to finally have the money.