COLUMBIA, SC (January 8, 2014) – A Bluffton woman came close to throwing away a quarter-of-a-million dollars.
She was cleaning out her car when she found the lottery ticket she'd bought at Publix, thought was worthless, and discarded under the seat. Before tossing the ticket in the trash, she noticed a few numbers she’d left unscratched.
“I was shaking,” she told lottery officials on Monday recalling the moment she won $250,000 on a $250 Grand ticket that was going in the garbage.
Then she revealed she’d known for nearly a month that she’d won the prize. She says she was too nervous to drive from Bluffton to Columbia by herself, so she waited until after the holidays when her sister was free.
Waiting cost the winner sleep and, at times, her sanity.
“It drove me nuts,” she said. “I thought up everything that could go wrong with the ticket.”
Her sister would gladly take on that burden, “I’m rubbing her head for good luck,” she said.
Odds of winning the final top prize that remains in the $250 Grand game are 1 in 576,000.
For selling the claimed winning ticket, Publix #1205 in Bluffton received a commission of $2,500.
Since the start of the Lottery in 2002, more than one million college scholarships and grants have been awarded to South Carolina’s students. In all, more than $3.2 BILLION has been transferred to support educational programs in the Palmetto State.
# # #
She was cleaning out her car when she found the lottery ticket she'd bought at Publix, thought was worthless, and discarded under the seat. Before tossing the ticket in the trash, she noticed a few numbers she’d left unscratched.
“I was shaking,” she told lottery officials on Monday recalling the moment she won $250,000 on a $250 Grand ticket that was going in the garbage.
Then she revealed she’d known for nearly a month that she’d won the prize. She says she was too nervous to drive from Bluffton to Columbia by herself, so she waited until after the holidays when her sister was free.
Waiting cost the winner sleep and, at times, her sanity.
“It drove me nuts,” she said. “I thought up everything that could go wrong with the ticket.”
Her sister would gladly take on that burden, “I’m rubbing her head for good luck,” she said.
Odds of winning the final top prize that remains in the $250 Grand game are 1 in 576,000.
For selling the claimed winning ticket, Publix #1205 in Bluffton received a commission of $2,500.
Since the start of the Lottery in 2002, more than one million college scholarships and grants have been awarded to South Carolina’s students. In all, more than $3.2 BILLION has been transferred to support educational programs in the Palmetto State.
# # #
2142