Two homeless men who bought a winning scratch card with a stolen credit card have been offered a life-changing deal by their victim: a share of a 500,000 euro jackpot.

It all started when the two homeless men opened a car parked in downtown Toulouse, in southwest France, and snatched a backpack containing credit cards and documents belonging to a man named Jean David, according to Le Parisien.

The 42-year-old man reported the theft to police and contacted the bank to block the cards. But he was informed that the thieves had made a €52.50 purchase from a kiosk in the centre of Toulouse which was about half a kilometre from where he had parked his car.

More concerned about finding his identity documents, Jean David decided to visit the kiosks the next morning to explain what had happened and to see if they had CCTV cameras to see the thieves.

“I was hoping to at least get my papers back, but the kiosk attendant said he hadn’t found anything. He said he remembered the two homeless men aged 30-40 entering the shop and buying cigarettes and scratchers. He found their behavior suspicious because they paid with a card and then wanted to buy something else but it wouldn’t go through and they couldn’t put in the PIN,” he told police.

The homeless people found that they won 500,000 and returned to the kiosk to collect the money. However, they were told they had to contact Francaise des Jeux, the company that runs France’s national lottery.

“The pavilion owner’s wife told me she had doubts about finding them because she saw they had won €500,000. She told me they were so happy that they even forgot their five packs of cigarettes,” Jean David said.

Since then, the situation has remained in legal limbo. The thieves have not tried to collect their winnings and Toulouse police say the Française des Jeux has frozen the winning ticket while investigations continue.

“It makes sense to share them”

Jean David has now urged the thieves to contact his lawyer. “Why not make a deal? Why not share it?” he said.

The 42-year-old’s lawyer, Pierre Debusson, told local newspaper La Depeche that he believed Française des Jeux would be legally obliged to unblock the winning scratch card if it was presented.

“It’s not out of the question that they would cancel it because it was bought with a stolen card,” he said. “Those who have it in their possession need not worry: our proposition is simple, without my client’s money they would not have won, without them, my client would not have won. It makes sense to share it,” he said.