Ohio woman thought her "Millionaire Blowout" ticket was a loser until the last spot showed $1 million

A woman from Delaware, Ohio, won the top prize on a $50 Millionaire Blowout scratch-off, $40,000 a year for 25 years, the Ohio Lottery said Wednesday. Winners Corner, 2036 Baltimore-Reynoldsburg Road in Reynoldsburg, sold the ticket.

She was on the couch next to her husband when she scratched it, and nothing matched, so she figured it was a loser, but then the last spot was an automatic win of $1 million. She was speechless at first and kept thinking, “this can’t be real!” After scanning the ticket on the lottery app, then she said, “Oh my gosh” and handed her phone to her husband, and the two sat there staring at the prize. Once the shock wore off, they called her in-laws.

She took the $500,000 cash option instead of the annuity and will keep $366,625 after state and federal taxes, the lottery said. The couple plans to pay off their house and bills and invest the rest in hopes of retiring early. She also wants to take her in-laws on a family trip to Las Vegas.

Millionaire Blowout has been on sale since June with 60 top prizes in about 5.2 million tickets, roughly 1 in 86,000 per ticket. Fifty are still unclaimed. No other Ohio game has more than five top prizes of $1 million or more left, and Millionaire Blowout rates first of Ohio's 76 active scratch-offs on our ValueScore™. Its overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 2.73. Earlier winners include a Toledo man who won $25,000 on his next ticket and a Berea man. Ohio's other games are ranked on the Ohio scratch-offs page.

Sources

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