Player nabs winning ticket right at the last minute

By Kate Northrop

COMMERCE TOWNSHIP, Mich. — It was either now or never for one Michigan lottery player who managed to grab a ticket right as the store was about to close and won $500,000.

The store was just about to shut its doors for the day when one Michigan man was about to head out the door, but he still had one last purchase to make.

The Wayne County man, who chose to remain anonymous, was wrapping up his shopping at the Kroger store on West 14 Mile Road in Commerce Township when the employees were shutting down the business for the evening. Part of the process includes shutting down the lottery vending machines.

"I was on my way out of the store because they were closing soon, and I stopped at the lottery machine to buy a few tickets before I left," the 58-year-old player told the Michigan Lottery. "A worker walked up to the machine to shut it down, so I quickly bought a few tickets, scratched the barcodes, and then scanned them at the machine to check them."

One of the tickets he purchased was a lucky $5 "Emerald 7s" scratch-off game, a newer game that just launched earlier this month.

"When one came back with a message to file a claim, the worker told me I must have won big, so I got out my phone and scanned it using the Michigan Lottery app," the winner recalled. "As soon as I scanned it, she asked what was wrong because of the look on my face, so I told her I'd won $50,000. I looked down at my phone again, and that's when I realized it actually said $500,000! I had to go sit in my car and try to calm down because I was so excited and worked up that I couldn't drive home. It was crazy!"

Of course, he made the trip to Lottery headquarters in Lansing when he was calm enough to drive and claimed the prize, also claiming the bragging rights to winning the game's first top prize of $500,000.

With the winnings, he said, he plans on paying bills. He'll save whatever is left over.

"Winning $500,000 is a huge relief," he explained. "I'm going to pay off every single bill I have and then decide what to do with the rest later."

The $5 "Emerald 7's" scratch-off game offers more than $19 million in cash prizes, according to the Lottery. So far, players have won more than $2 million in the game alone.

Following the Wayne County man's claim, two out of three top prizes of $500,000 remain in the game, as well as 20 out of 21 second-tier prizes of $1,000 and 1,117 out of 1,267 third-tier prizes of $500.

The overall odds of winning any prize in the game are 1 in 4.12.

(Click to display full-size in gallery)This last-second lottery ticket won $500,000.