Whatever are the odds of winning two six-figure lottery prizes within just a few days of each other, a woman in Delaware recently beat them.
The 70-year-old woman at the center of a viral story coming out of the Delaware state lottery benefited from a stroke of good fortune when in the middle of October she went to a gasoline station and bought two scratch-off tickets. One of the Instant Game tickets was a $100,000 winner, according to a news release from state lottery officials.
Officials said the woman, from the community of Newark, waited about a week until 20 October to redeem her ticket and claim her prize at the lottery’s headquarters in Delaware’s capital, Dover.
She celebrated on her way home by buying three more Serious Money tickets at a Dover convenience store – and one turned out to be a $300,000 top prize winner.
The woman, who asked the lottery to not publicly release her name so she could preserve her privacy after the windfall, had made the fateful trip with her best friend. Neither could believe the good fortune at play.
“We just sat there in disbelief,” the woman said, according to the state lottery’s news release. “It was absolute insanity.”
The woman and her friend immediately drove back to the state lottery’s headquarters and claimed the prize, which brought her winnings for the day to $400,000. She added that it was her biggest Delaware lottery victory since she started playing it seven years ago.
The lucky lottery winner reportedly told officials she plans to put most of her 20 October winnings into her retirement fund. She also doesn’t seem keen on giving up playing the lottery, telling its administrators: “I love scratching Instant Game tickets!” when they asked her if there was anything else she wanted to tell the public about her victories in quick succession.
Of course, most lottery players won’t ever experience a win like that. Delaware lottery officials estimate that players have a one in 120,000 chance of winning the $100,000 Instant Game prize, and the odds of taking the $300,000 Serious Money reward are thought to be one in 150,000.
Lottery winnings are taxed like regular income in most of the US – but Delaware is a notable exception. There, such winnings aren’t subject to the state income tax rate of 6.6%, making Delaware one of the best places to win the lottery.
Delaware officials say their lottery – which started in 1975 – has contributed nearly $6bn to the state’s general fund, which finances a variety of public services.