Winning lottery game’s top prize leaves South Carolina woman speechless
A Midlands woman was so surprised by winning the top prize in a South Carolina Education Lottery game that she couldn’t speak, officials said in a news release.
The excitement of winning $75,000 on a scratch-off ticket was contagious, as the woman said her husband also was stunned by their good luck.
“I was speechless,” the winner said in the release. “I had my husband look at it, and he didn’t believe it either.”
There was more luck to the win than the five-figure jackpot. The woman said because of traffic she wasn’t able to stop at the store where she planned to buy the lottery ticket, officials said. So she wound up spending $3 for the Bingo Squared game at the Cheap Way convenience store/gas station on North Main Street in Sumter, according to the release.
It was fate, according to the woman.
After realizing she had a winner, the woman downloaded the South Carolina Lottery’s app and scanned the ticket to be sure it was real. When the message told her to claim the prize in Columbia, she knew the couple had won big, officials said.
The woman said she and her husband will use the windfall to pay off their house, according to the release.
“Not having a mortgage anymore, that will be a happy day,” she said.
The woman’s name was not released because South Carolina is one of eight states — along with Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.
Lottery officials said the odds of winning $75,000 in Bingo Squared were 1-in-528,000, and three top prizes remains unclaimed.
Cheap Way received a commission of $750 for selling the claimed winning ticket, according to the release.
