Lottery player’s $10 ticket makes her millionaire in Florida, even after taxes

An optimistic Florida woman paid $10 for a lottery ticket and it paid off with the kind of money that made her a millionaire even after all those pesky tax deductions.

Ruth Cain of Brooksville beat odds of 1 in 4,552,695 to win the top prize — $2 million — in Triple Jackpot, Florida Lottery officials said in a news release.

Cain, 53, claimed her prize Monday, May 12, and was given a choice of taking a reduced jackpot via a lump sum, or getting a larger percent of the money by having it divided into annual payments.

“She chose to receive her winnings as a one-time, lump-sum payment of $1,209,700,” lottery officials said.

Cain bought her ticket at the RaceTrac convenience store on Cortez Boulevard in Brooksville, which is about a 50-mile drive north from Tampa, officials said. The store gets a “$4,000 bonus commission for selling the winning scratch-off ticket.”

Triple Jackpot is a scratch-off game that requires matching the ticket numbers to a set of winning numbers. One of the game’s four top prizes of $2 million remains. Lesser prizes in the game range from $10 to $10,000.

This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 9:53 AM with the headline "Lottery player’s $10 ticket makes her millionaire in Florida, even after taxes."