Loyal lottery fans come across special ticket in their weekly haul

By Kate Northrop

EASTVALE, Calif. — A California husband and wife who have been playing the lottery loyally for 20 years finally came across a special $1 million winning ticket in their weekly stash.

Patience paid off for one California couple, whose weekly lottery haul contained one lucky ticket that netted them a $1 million prize.

Nicholas Gercis and his wife have been avid lottery enthusiasts for 20 years. They found their rhythm with one particular game in their weekly ticket purchases, and they finally came across something that dwarfed every other prize they've ever won.

"We buy scratchers every week, and we started buying these fifty times ones, and it was doing okay for us," Gercis told the California Lottery.

The game in question was the $10 "50X The Cash" scratch-off ticket, which offers a top prize of $1 million.

Gercis and his wife like to visit one of a few 7-Eleven stores in their area every week to purchase some scratch-off tickets for fun, they said to Lottery officials. They made their weekly purchase at the 7-Eleven on Schleisman Road in Eastvale, which included some of those "50X The Cash" tickets.

The pair were enjoying their time sitting out on their patio when they revealed some rather nice wins of "$100 and stuff" on a couple tickets, but then they were met with a prize far better.

"It was just, like, you know, just what the heck?!" Gercis recalled, trying to fathom the win.

With the winnings from the $1 million top prize, the Gercis family plans on paying off their house, donating a sum to their church, and investing the remainder for long term security.

There are now 4 out of 14 top prizes of $1 million left to claim in the $10 "50X The Cash" scratch-off game, as well as 18 out of 29 second-tier prizes of $20,000 and 19 out of 29 third-tier prizes of $10,000.

The overall odds of winning any prize in the game are 1 in 3.30.