Lottery pool takes home "magnificent" record-setting prize
By Kate Northrop
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A group of friends dubbed the "Magnificent Seven" have claimed the Virginia Lottery's largest Cash 5 jackpot to-date of $1,008,842.
The Cash 5 with EZ Match game has a rolling jackpot that increases each drawing there is no winner. Last week, one ticket won the jackpot, which was the biggest in the game's history. Yesterday, the Lottery announced that the massive haul was claimed by a group of seven lucky players.
"It feels incredible," Ryan Nguyen of Chesapeake exclaimed alongside his pals at the Lottery's customer service center in Hampton.
The Hamton Roads-area players said they often pool their money to play Cash 5 and that one of their tickets had matched all five winning numbers in the Jan. 20 drawing, which were 5, 14, 24, 27, and 41.
After the drawing took place at 11:00 pm, the group buzzed with excitement as they quickly realized they had hit the jackpot.
"There was no sleeping last night!" Nguyen told the Lottery.
The other winners in the group include Duc Nguyen, Doan Tran, Tien Ho, Trinh Tran, Hong Ho, and Thi Nguyen.
One of the group members bought the Quick Pick ticket at the Food Lion grocery store in the Great Neck Village Shopping Center on North Great Neck Road in Virginia Beach. For selling the winning ticket, the retailer received a $10,000 bonus commission.
It's the first time the jackpot hit the $1 million mark since the game's release in October 2020, and it's the largest prize ever recorded in the game.
The jackpot was last won on December 12 with a ticket purchased at Lakeside Corner Market in Richmond, winning a $279,963 prize, after which it reset to its starting point of $100,000 and began its record roll.
According to the Lottery, Cash 5 sales generated about $1.6 million in profits for K-12 education in Virginia since then.
The $1,008,842 jackpot had beat the previous record of $894,591, which was won by a couple who bought the winning ticket at the Wal Mart in Waynesboro, a press release states.
Cash 5 drawings take place every day at 11:00 pm EST at $1 a play. The odds of matching all five numbers to win the jackpot are 1 in 749,398, and the jackpot for tonight's drawing currently stands at $115,000.
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