COLUMBIA, SC (July 16, 2026) – An Upstate man was sitting on his porch when he says something told him to go buy a lottery ticket. He did and won $500,000.
“I had a vision,” the winner explained to South Carolina Education Lottery officials. “It told me to go and get a ticket at the Cracker Jack store, and I got two of them.”
One of the $10 scratch-offs he picked out at the Cracker Jack on Pendleton St. in Greenville won him a half-a-million-dollar top prize. But he says he didn’t have time to celebrate.
“I had to go to work,” he said.
And he was getting ready for work when the lottery caught up with him after cashing in the winning ticket. He says he is spending some of the prize money on his family and saving the rest.
“I’m blessed to have it,” he said.
The odds of winning $500,000 in the Gold Vault Extra Play! game are 1 in 1,176,000. Two more top prizes remain in the game.
And he’s not the only winner. Cracker Jack in Greenville received a commission of $5,000 for selling the claimed ticket.
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