A lucky woman has become a millionaire after she bought a lottery scratchcard while picking up a prescription at a drugstore.
Marie Edwards from the city of Fredericksburg, in the US state of Virginia, bought the ‘USD 1 Million Spectacular’ ticket after visiting the local CVS pharmacy in October.
Caught up with her daily responsibilities, she only remembered to scratch the ticket the next day and was stunned when she uncovered the astonishing prize.
Marie said in a statement obtained by Newsflash from Virginia Lottery: “It feels fantastic and unbelievable!”
The lucky lady made it to lottery headquarters on Thursday, 2nd November, to collect her prize.
She could choose between taking the full USD 1 million (GBP 788,030) prize in annual instalments over 30 years or a one-time payment.
After choosing the lump sum she headed home with USD 571,000 (GBP 449,965) before state and federal taxes.
She said: “It’s something you always hope will happen, but you don’t really think will happen.”
Virginia Lottery representatives said: “The ‘USD 1 Million Spectacular’ game features prizes ranging from USD 10 [GBP 7.8] to USD 1,000,000 [GBP 788,030].
“It’s one of dozens of scratcher games available from the Virginia Lottery. This is the second top prize claimed in the game, which means one more top prize is unclaimed.
“The chances of winning the top prize are 1 in 1,224,000. The chances of winning any prize in this game are 1 in 3.93.
“All Virginia Lottery profits go to K-12 education in Virginia. Stafford County received more than USD 16.2 million [GBP 12.7 million] in Lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year.
“In Fiscal Year 2023, the Lottery raised more than USD 867 million [GBP 683 million] for K-12 education, making up approximately 10 percent of Virginia’s total K-12 school budget.”
