A Kentucky lottery winner who surprisingly won $1.5 million on a scratch-off admitted to being a bundle of nerves. The man, who has chosen to remain anonymous, purchased a $20 scratch-off called Wild Cash 200X from a vending machine, seemingly on a whim since he typically buys $10 tickets from the counter instead. Lo and behold, he discovered that he had won the top prize of $1.5 million in the first line of numbers on the ticket. Here’s what he and his wife plan on doing with the windfall.
Kentucky man checked lottery ticket 50 times
When the Kentucky man saw that he matched the “21” in the main box to the winning “21” in the top row and found that it won him $1.5 million, he was shocked. In an interview with the Kentucky Lottery, he said that he double-checked the ticket “fifty times to make sure my eyes weren’t bad!”
More than that, holding a lottery ticket worth so much turned him into a “nervous wreck” as he tried to figure out a safe place to put it. “What if the house burns down? What if I put it in my pocket and rub the numbers off? What if my truck gets stolen?” He continued to be filled with anxiety until he was able to cash in the ticket several days later in Louisville.
The man and his wife had the option of taking $75,000 a year for 20 years, totaling $1.5 million, or a single jackpot payment of $1,025,000. They chose the latter and received $738,000 after taxes.
The man joked that he didn’t need to worry about his next electric bill and said that they would use the extra cash to pay off their home and car, so that can “live how we’ve been living.” While they would consider retiring early, he hopes to give some of the winnings to charity. “I promised the Lord that if I ever won big, that I would [help] the elderly and children.”
