COLUMBIA, SC (September 11, 2025) – A Midlands woman who decided not to buy a second lottery ticket ended up changing her mind, going back in the store and winning $1 million.
The winner told lottery officials that she initially wanted to buy two scratch-offs, but she asked the clerk at the J and S Food Mart on Forest Dr. in Columbia to put one of them back. When the ticket she bought wasn’t a winner, she wondered about the other ticket she left behind.
“So I went back in and got it,” she said. “I scratched it and thought ‘Am I looking at this right?’”
She put her glasses on to be sure the second $10 ticket really won her $1 million.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she told lottery officials.
As for her plans for the windfall, she says she’ll be debt free and save the rest for a rainy day.
Odds of winning $1 million in the Million Dollar Mania game are 1 in 1,530,000. Two more $1 million prizes remain in the game.
J and S Food Mart #8 in Columbia received a commission of $10,000 for selling the claimed ticket.
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