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A Virginia man recently went to the grocery store to pick up some chicken – and came back half a million dollars richer. Winner, winner, chicken dinner – literally.
Russell Gomes, of South Boston, Virginia, went to the Food Lion grocery store recently to buy chicken, he told the Virginia Lottery's website.
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South Boston is located in southern Virginia, about 20 miles north of the North Carolina border.
While he was shopping, he decided to buy a scratch-off ticket – specifically, the Virginia Lottery's "Magnificent 7s" scratcher.
Gomes, a tractor-trailer driver, went to scratch off his ticket in the store's parking lot – and got the surprise of a lifetime.
"I really didn’t believe it!" he told Lottery officials when he redeemed his winning ticket on May 3. "It feels great!
A trip to the grocery store paid off big time for Russell Gomes of South Boston, Virginina – he won $500,000 in a scratch-off game. (iStock / iStock)
Gomes told the Virginia Lottery that he plans on using his winnings to pay off a vacation that he had already scheduled.
Magnificent 7s, the game Gomes played, has prizes ranging from $20 to $500,000, said the Virginia Lottery.
This was about 10% of the commonwealth's budget for K-12 schools, said the Virginia Lottery's website.
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These funds are distributed throughout Virginia's counties.
Gomes lives in Halifax County, noted the Virginia Lottery's website, which received "more than $4.4 million in Lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year."
During the 2023 fiscal year, the Virginia Lottery had sales of $4.6 billion.
Of those sales, more than $3.5 billion was distributed to lottery winners and the retailers who sold the winning tickets, said the lottery's website.
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