Man thinks jackpot Missouri lottery ticket is fake. Then he ‘started to panic’
A lottery player’s forgetful mistake led him to a jackpot lottery win in Missouri, officials say.
After forgetting to get gas the night before, the Missouri man stopped at a Circle K in Chesterfield the next morning. While there, he picked up a 777 Jackpot scratch-off ticket, according to the Missouri Lottery.
He questioned what he saw when he scratched off the ticket.
“It honestly looked fake at first,” he told lottery officials in an April 17 news release. “It was such an odd experience.”
He had a reason to wonder if the ticket was real. There were a lot of 7s staring back at him, after all, as he won one of the game’s jackpot prizes of $777,777.
The winner said he checked his ticket over and over before believing it.
“Once I knew it was real, I started to panic a little bit!” he told lottery officials. “I kept expecting something to happen before I got home with it!”
When he safely made it home, he signed the ticket and put it away “for safekeeping.”
The winner said he plans to use part of his winnings to fund an upcoming 20th anniversary trip for he and his wife.
The 777 Jackpot game costs $10 to play and offers two jackpot prizes of $777,777. One top prize remains.
Chesterfield is about a 20-mile drive west from St. Louis.
This story was originally published April 21, 2025 at 8:40 AM with the headline "Man thinks jackpot Missouri lottery ticket is fake. Then he ‘started to panic’."