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September 18, 2009
When Angela Hayes of Bristol, Tennessee, played Mega Millions recently, she bought a few Virginia Lottery Scratcher tickets, too. She won $20 on $120 Million Cash Blowout, so she bought a few more of the same game for herself and her business partner, Donald Wade, also of Bristol.
When he scratched his tickets later, he thought he might have a winner. Ms. Hayes double-checked the ticket and said, “Yeah, that’s a million dollars!”
The winning ticket was purchased at Andy’s Market, located at 33 Commonwealth Avenue in Bristol, Virginia. The store received a $10,000 bonus for selling the top-prize ticket. Ms. Hayes said she likes to go to Andy’s so she can “scratch in Virginia, not Tennessee.”
Ms. Hayes and Mr. Wade had a choice of taking $1 million in annual installments over 25 years or the immediate cash option of $564,000 before taxes. They chose the cash option. They told Lottery officials they are still thinking about all the ways to use the money, but paying bills and helping their children are on the list.
$120 Million Cash Blowout is one of dozens of Scratcher games offered by the Virginia Lottery. As the name says, the game started with more than $120 million in total prizes, ranging from $20 all the way up to 20 top prizes of $1 million. Since this is the sixth million-dollar winner, there are still 14 top-prize tickets yet to be claimed.
Nearly 95 cents of each dollar spent on the Virginia Lottery by players goes back to the Commonwealth in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retailer commissions. Since 1999, all Virginia Lottery profits have been designated solely to K-12 public school education in the Commonwealth. In that time, the Lottery has turned over more than $4 billion for Virginia’s public schools. The latest annual profits of $439.1 million currently represent about 6 percent of state funding for public education in Virginia. In 21 years, the Lottery has sold more than $21.1 billion in tickets, awarded more than $1.1 billion in retailer commissions and paid more than $11.6 billion in prizes to players.
Please play responsibly.
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