Farmer long predicted he’d win the lottery. Then a coffee run left him ‘in shock’

For years, an Iowa husband has predicted he’d win big playing the lottery someday.

And while Brent Oden only ever won some “smaller prizes,” he never gave up hope, according to a news release from the Iowa Lottery.

“Since we were married, he always played the lottery, and he’s always told me, ‘We’re going to hit the big one. We’re going to win the lottery,’” his wife, Julie, told lottery officials. “And after 25 years of being married and we had never hit the lottery, I thought, ‘Maybe I ought to second-guess this guy, I don’t think we’re ever going to hit this lottery!’”

That all changed when the 56-year-old man from Cincinnati, Iowa, had a clerk at Bratz Oil Corp. check his Lucky for Life ticket.

“We went in for coffee after we did some chores on the farm,” Oden said. “I handed my tickets to one of the cashiers, and she ran it. And she looked at me, she looked back at the machine, and she said, ‘I think you just hit something big.’ I said, ‘Surely not.’ And everybody was kind of in shock and awe for a little bit.”

The man, who is a farmer and sanitation business owner, had matched the first five numbers during a Lucky for Life drawing. This meant he won the game’s second largest prize of $25,000 a year for life.

“And lo and behold, my stars fell in a row today or something,” Oden said when claiming his win on June 28.

Oden chose to receive a lump-sum payment of $390,000, according to the release. He plans to invest his winnings and maybe take his wife to Hawaii for the first time since their honeymoon.

He had pledged to take her back someday, lottery officials said.

“So I guess I can come through with that promise,” Oden said.

Cincinnati, Iowa, is about 100 miles southeast of Des Moines.

This story was originally published July 3, 2023 at 11:05 AM with the headline "Farmer long predicted he’d win the lottery. Then a coffee run left him ‘in shock’."