SC man turns $15 lottery prize into jackpot that’s 25,000-times bigger, officials say
After winning $15 on a lottery ticket, a Midlands man could have walked away with a good feeling about a prize.
Instead, he decided to push his luck. His decision paid off in a big way as he hit a jackpot on a scratch-off game that multiplied his initial winnings by 25,000 times.
The man won a $375,000 top prize in the Mighty Jumbo Bucks game, South Carolina Education Lottery officials said Thursday in a news release.
He bought the six-figure winning scratch-off game at the S M Mart convenience store/gas station in Kershaw County, according to the release. That’s in Lugoff, in the area between the Wateree River and Lugoff-Elgin High School.
“My hands were shaking,” the winner said in the release.
The man’s name has not been 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.
He didn’t say what he plans to do with the newfound windfall, but the victory has changed his mind about one thing, according to the release.
“I always said if I hit it big I wouldn’t play anymore,” he said. “But I think I’ll play every once in a while.”
Lottery officials said the odds of winning the top prize in the $10 Mighty Jumbo Bucks game are one-in-960,000, and two of the eight top prizes in the scratch-off game remain unclaimed.
The convenience store received a commission of $3,750 for selling the claimed winning ticket, according to the release.
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