Winner is anxious to hold onto a winning ticket longer than necessary
By Kate Northrop
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky man went into "full panic mode" after finding out that the lottery ticket in his hand was worth $250,000.
An anonymous Kentucky resident was anxious to get his winning lottery ticket worth $250,000 out of his hands when he discovered how much it was worth.
The Louisville man, who requested to remain anonymous, had finished work for the day and stopped at Circle K on Mud Lane in Louisville to make his weekly lottery purchases.
There, he chose a ticket from the Kentucky Lottery's $10 "Wild Cash 100X" scratch-off game and scanned it in the store. Based on what he saw on the scanner and the ticket, he was nearly certain he had won the top prize. There in the play area was number 33 on the top row with a correlating $250,000 amount.
"I was, like, full panic mode," he recalled fondly to Lottery officials.
He needed another set of eyes to make sure his own weren't playing tricks on him, so he immediately went home to show his wife.
"I said, this is a really big ticket," he recounted in a press release. "I said, I don't know how much it is, but I think it might be the top prize."
He and his wife began jumping up and down when she confirmed his suspicions, but as quickly as they both exploded with joy, the celebrations turned into an anxious bout of "jitters."
"I didn't want to have to hold on to this all weekend," the husband explained to the Lottery. "I was like, don't tell the kids. Nobody needs to know. Let's get out of here. We're running downtown."
They visited Lottery headquarters in Louisville to validate the winning ticket and claim the prize and ended up receiving a check for $180,000 after taxes.
"This money will just take a lot of pressure off of us," the winner said. "We are going to put it toward our finances."
For selling the winning ticket, the retailer receives a $2,500 bonus from the Lottery.
There is just one more top prize of $250,000 remaining in the $10 "Wild Cash 100X" scratch-off game, which launched in June. There is also one more second-tier prize of $1,000 remaining, as well as 1,373 third-tier prizes of $500 left to claim.
The overall odds of winning any prize in the game are 1 in 3.42.
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I've noticed that most stories about big winners are from scratch-off tickets. Few big winner stories are from Powerball or Megamillions.
Of course, I'm not surprised. I've done the math and concluded that scratch-off tickets are a better deal than PB/MM, but there are people on this forum convinced otherwise. They think that $846 million is somehow better than $250,000 or $1 million or whatever despite the ridiculous odds of winning $846 million.
Would you rather have a realistic chance of winning $250,000 or more, or an unrealistic chance of winning hundreds of millions of dollars? I'll take the realistic chance.
Congrats to the panicky scratcher, enjoy
Congratulations to the blessed husband! $250,000 to $180,000. Taxes are killers.
A beautiful win!! Congratulations
He needed another set of eyes to make sure his own weren't playing tricks on him, so he immediately went home to show his wife.
Saw a YouTube video about a Florida man that trusted his eyes and instead of scanning his ticket or looking at what was printed beneath the matching number, drove 4 hours to the state capital to find out it was a "misprint". Or more likely over zealous scratching off what should have been a "3" behind the "1".
On this ticket "ththr" is beneath the "33" and "twfythd" is below $250,000 and they walked out of KY Lottery headquarters with an after tax check of $180,000. Congrats!!
It's a challenge to walk into the right store at the right time and select the right ticket. I believe in smaller jackpot pursuits also. But I go the Cash 5 route. Your basic 5/35 for 1.00. Can't beat it.
if he's on "full" panic mode for 250k, what panic mode would he be on if there were an extra 0 or two?
Probably in the ICU on life support 🤣🤣🤣
If I was in the office, having lemon tea, then got my MM ticket out, scanned it on my phone and realized I won 1 billion, I would put it back in my wallet and continue sipping my lemon tea with a sneaky smile on my face.
Absolutely zero need to dash out and go home.