Winner has legendary experience in prize-swapping holiday game

By Kate Northrop

Anyone who has played the game of white elephant knows that there's no way to predict the outcome, but someone ending up with a scratch-off ticket worth $175,000 was not something anyone would ever expect to happen.

Lori Janes, of Louisville, was participating in a white elephant gift exchange at a company holiday party and arguably won the best prize out of everyone there.

On Tuesday, her company, Harmon Dental Center, was holding a holiday party. She works there as the office manager and treatment coordinator. While taking part in the game, she grabbed a $25 TJ Maxx gift card since she loves shopping at that particular chain store.

Unfortunately for her, or rather fortunately, a coworker "stole" the gift from her. She was not disappointed for long — she decided to take the $25 in Kentucky Lottery scratch-off tickets from another person.

As per the rules of the game, no one else was allowed to "steal" the lottery tickets since they had now already been stolen once.

"Once it got to me, it was done and mine to keep," Janes told the Lottery. "That's when everyone was telling me to scratch them off."

Everyone sitting in the room watched patiently while Janes scratched off her tickets. The first ticket rewarded her with $50, already double the total value of the tickets, and then she began scratching off the second one.

As Janes continued playing the $10 "Hit The Jackpot" ticket, each of the 15 spots slowly began to reveal a prize. Soon, they were all uncovered, and she had won the game's $175,000 top prize.

"Everyone was going insane," she recalled. "People were getting their calculators out and double checking. A couple of people even scanned the ticket on the lottery's app, just to make sure."

"I couldn't believe it," the winner continued. "It was a twenty-five-dollar gift exchange, and I won one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars!" 

Lori's husband and two children almost didn't believe her when she called them to deliver the news.

"We figured she didn't look at it right, but then we heard people in the background celebrating, it became real," her husband said in a press release.

Janes and her family visited Lottery headquarters in Louisville just hours after the win to claim the prize, which came out to be $124,250 after taxes.

 "This is so crazy. I'm truly blessed," Janes told Lottery officials.

The winnings will allow Janes to pay off her daughter's student loans as well as her family's cars.

The top prize-winning ticket was purchased at Sunrise Market on Taylorsville Road in Fisherville, which will receive a $1,750 bonus for selling it.

Following Janes' win, there is just one more top prize of $175,000 left to claim in the $10 "Hit The Jackpot" game, which launched at the beginning of this month. There are also 49 second-tier prizes of $2,0000 and 66 third-tier prizes of $1,000 remaining.

(Click to display full-size in gallery)Lori Janes, upon learning that her scratch-off lottery ticket was worth $175,000.

(Click to display full-size in gallery)Lori Janes at lottery headquarters when she claimed a $175,000 scratch-off lottery prize.