FLORENCE, Ky. — A Kentucky couple cashed in on a $1 million winning ticket just days before their wedding anniversary.
A man who wishes to remain anonymous from Florence bought a Millionaire Club Scratch-Off ticket earlier this month at the Kroger on Patrick Drive in Burlington.
The man told lottery officials that as he walked past a lottery vending machine, he considered buying a ticket.
“I didn’t feel lucky for that one, so I walked all the way down to the other side of the store, and they didn’t have any. So, I was walking back and stopped at customer service,” he said. “That’s when I asked for ticket number one.”
When he got home, he scratched off the ticket. “I scratch off all the numbers first, then I go to the top and when I saw the number 20, that I matched.”
As he finished scratching the ticket, the game's $1 million top prize was revealed.
“It’s usually tiny little zeroes which means you’ve won like $75 but I saw the big zero and thought I’d won $100, but there was another zero, so I thought it was $1,000 and then there was another zero and another zero until I saw a million,” he said.
The man said he found his wife in their home and said, "You're not going to believe this."
“I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, and I told her, and she started laughing and crying at the same time,” he said.
“This can’t be right. What is happening,” his wife said.
The couple drove to lottery headquarters in Louisville, where he received a check for $710,000 after taxes.
The couple were high school sweethearts and said they celebrated their wedding anniversary just a couple of days after claiming the prize.
“He’s already made a couple jokes about that,” his wife said. “I told her I gave her a million dollars for our anniversary,” he said.
They told officials they will take a family vacation and save the winnings for his wife’s retirement.
Kroger will receive $10,000 for selling the winning ticket.
Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.
