Husband forgot to get lottery tickets. So wife bought her own — and won big
A woman’s husband forgot to get lottery tickets. So, the wife bought her own — and won big.
“I’ll have a little fun, take some trips and retirement will come sooner rather than later,” the wife told the South Carolina Education Lottery in a July 25 news release.
The lucky winner scored $500,000 after she stopped at a gas station in Lyman, a roughly 25-mile drive northeast from downtown Greenville. While at the 357 Redi Mart, she tried her luck on the Money Madness Extra Play scratch-off game.
“I was standing in line and these bright, shiny and glittery tickets caught my eye,” the woman told lottery officials. “I bought three of them.”
She checked two of the $10 tickets, but they weren’t winners. Then she scratched off the last one, revealing a “magical” win.
It turns out, the woman beat more than 1-in-a million odds to score one of the top prizes in the game. She kept $347,500 after taxes and compared the win to a character’s fortune on the TV show “The Beverly Hillbillies,” lottery officials wrote in their release and in an email to McClatchy News.
“I felt like Jed Clampett when he discovered his bubblin’ crude,” said the lucky winner, who wasn’t identified publicly.
It’s not the first time an eye-catching lottery ticket has led someone to hit the jackpot. In North Carolina, a man was drawn to a ticket that made him much richer, McClatchy News reported in February.
This story was originally published July 25, 2025 at 11:18 AM with the headline "Husband forgot to get lottery tickets. So wife bought her own — and won big."
