Lottery player finally checks ticket — and he’s glad he did. ‘It’s changed my life’
A lottery player finally checked his scratch-off ticket — and he’s glad he did.
That’s because the ticket he kept for days was worth $200,000 — the top prize in a South Carolina game.
“It’s hard to put into words how I felt,” the jackpot winner told the S.C. Education Lottery in a March 27 news release.
The lucky player, who wasn’t identified publicly, scored the windfall after stopping in Walterboro, a roughly 50-mile drive west from Charleston. While at a Speedy Express gas station, he tried his luck on the $5 Poker Night game.
The man left the ticket in his car before taking a closer look a few days later.
“Something told me to get it checked,” he told lottery officials.
It turns out, the ticket beat 1-in-870,000 odds to score the $200,000 prize. When he brought the ticket back to the gas station, the clerk told him he had to go to Columbia, where the lottery has a claims center.
The man kept $139,000 after taxes. He has since bought a car and home, lottery officials wrote in the release and in an email to McClatchy News.
“It’s changed my life,” the winner said.
It’s not the first time a lottery player has waited to check a lucky ticket. In California, a man forgot about his ticket before learning he was getting much richer, McClatchy News reported March 26.
This story was originally published March 28, 2025 at 8:33 AM with the headline "Lottery player finally checks ticket — and he’s glad he did. ‘It’s changed my life’."
