(Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAs a result of her win, the gas station where she got the lottery ticket received a commission of $5,000. <\/p>\n
According to the South Carolina Education Lottery, the odds of winning $500,000 in the Money Madness Extra Play game are one in 1.152 million. <\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first lottery player in the U.S. who ended up winning big. Earlier this month, school bus driver Russell Ruff, who\u2019s based in Connecticut, discovered that his lost lottery ticket was worth $150,000. <\/p>\n
He lost the ticket shortly after purchasing it on Friday, June 13, at a gas station. So, it was \u201cmiraculous\u201d that his 16-year-old cat was the one who later discovered the Powerball ticket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost the ticket at home. It went behind a headboard, and we didn\u2019t think too much of it,\u201d he said in the release shared by the Connecticut Lottery. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really check the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruff said he had to move his bed when he realized the cat was stuck behind it. With the ticket back in his possession, he realized he had four of the five winning numbers, plus the Powerball number.<\/p>\n
He also had Power Play added to his ticket, which allows you to multiply your non-jackpot winnings by a specific amount. As a result, Ruff\u2019s prize increased from $50,000 to $150,000. <\/p>\n
In June, a Kentucky woman, Pamela Howard-Thornton, also won the state lottery after nearly losing the winning ticket by throwing it in the trash.<\/p>\n
Howard-Thornton bought four tickets for the Flamingo Bingo scratch-off game at a rest stop store in nearby Lebanon Junction after having a dream about winning a large jackpot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first three were not winners, so I put them in the trash,\u201d she added. \u201cThen I was like \u2018Where\u2019s my fourth ticket?\u2019 I looked in the trash and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I threw it away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Luckily, Howard-Thornton was able to recover the ticket and won the game’s top prize of $80,000, or $57,600 after taxes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more After her husband forgot to buy their lottery tickets, a woman took matters into her own hands \u2014 and hit the jackpot. The unidentified woman recently stopped at a Redi Mart gas station in Lyman, South Carolina, and bought herself three Money Madness Extra Play scratch-off game lottery tickets. She told the South Carolina Education Lottery that the \u201cbright, shiny, and glittery tickets caught my eye.\u201d She didn\u2019t win anything from the first two tickets after scratching off the hidden numbers. However, she said her third ticket was \u201cmagical,\u201d since it won her the top prize of $500,000. \u201cI felt like Jed Clampett when he discovered his bubblin\u2019 crude,\u201d she said, referring to the character on The Beverly Hillbillies discovering oil on his land. This resulted in Jed\u2019s family\u2019s new wealth and their move to California. The woman also shared her plans for her earnings, adding: \u201cI\u2019ll have a little fun, take some trips, and retirement will come sooner rather than later.\u201d The woman bought three lottery tickets at a gas station in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}