A Coral Springs, Florida, woman has claimed a $10 million lottery win — the largest haul of the year so far in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Tara Tuttle, 35, of Coral Springs, claimed the $10 million top prize in the Billion Dollar Blockbuster Scratch-off game at Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee. Her ticket cost $20.
Despite the high cost of scratch tickets like the one claimed by Tuttle, Lottery officials note that scratch-off payback is about 70 percent compared to 50 percent for the draw games.
Tuttle told lottery officials she carried around the winning ticket for more than a month before she actually scratched it and noticed she won the $10 million top prize.
"I had a feeling that it was a lucky ticket but I didn't want to find out quite yet," she told them. She told them she's going to look into starting a charitable organization for those affected with cancer, but couldn't be reached for further details.
Five $10 million and 74 $1 million prizes still remain in the scratch-off game. While Powerball and the Florida Lotto are the games known to most casual lottery players, scratch-offs make for about 57 percent of statewide sales, lottery officials say.
Tuttle (pictured with her "wife", Cary Tullis on the left) chose the one-time, lump-sum payment option of $6.5 million. (Under current Florida law, same-sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships are not recognized.)
The winning ticket was purchased from Publix, located at 2201 N. University Drive in Coral Springs.
The largest Florida win this year before Tuttle's was a $6 million Florida Lotto win in January. No Floridian has taken home the top Powerball prize this year.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
How relevant is the winners marital status , and Florida's stance on same sex marriages to this story.
$10M on a scratch off...Very Nice
Congrats
It is totally non-relevant. Very unprofessional and uncalled for.
According to the Florida Lottery website, this Billion dollar blockbuster game has been active since February, 2009. I am somewhat surprised that there are still 5 $10-million and 74 $1-million tickets outstanding.
I wonder what the initial number of large prizes were when it debut?
(Under current Florida law, same-sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships are not recognized.)
OMG Who really cares if she is married,gay or straight. They did not have to include that in the story. I think it was unprofessional to say the least.
YOU GO GIRL ON YOUR BIG WIN!!!!
Go Big money! I think the article was very awkwardly written but perhaps they wanted to indicate since she won the money in Florida, her wife would have no spousal claims on the money.
With a 10 Million dollar win. I don't think her wife is going anywhere no time soon. I wish them all the luck in the world.
go>moe>"MONEY"$$$$$$$$>Atst7:
BUT:
PSYKO has a gull'ssssssssss and/R bouy'sssssssssss>>>>CONTRACT >>
U (AND) ALL>>>UR >>> lawyer'$$$$$$$$$$$$$$>>>>must SIGN!!!!!
I would have taken the cash too on a scratch-it annuity. That is a nice chunk of change!-weshar75
Quit wondering what the initial number of large prizes where and go get to scratching!! lol
Go find those winning tickets!!
Looks like her "wife" is hoggin' most of that check in the picture.
That could have Freudian ramifications.
I've had a few wives that liked to hog the check my own self.
well it seems that marital status, whereas engaged and other statuses of other winners are listed... is relevant or at least seemingly lacking protest from people here. So, perhaps saying "wife" was with respect to what the winner referred to her lifepartner/family (or generic pc term to avoid offense to the public) as, and that including Florida's stance to avoid the angry mobs that don't agree with her choice of wording or definitions due to the laws of the state... and likely also the complaints from the queer community... they do tend to get as uppity as everyone else over these sorts of things.
but eh, congratz to the winners. ;P
The California lottery winner partner only had fiancee status, I wonder if wife status give the Florida winner partner more rights to a share of her winnings.
I think you're ALL getting a bit uppity on this. She probably refers to her as "wife" because they are in the most committed relationship that Florida law can recognize. And the parenthesis statement was a means to explain why the term "wife" had to be quoted. Basic journalism 101 is that you would have to explain something like that in order to not confuse your readers or have them take it the wrong way. If Tuttle came alone to claim the money and took the picture by herself, none of this would even be in the article.