Lottery News

A Virginia Lottery threw out her lottery tickets thinking they were "losers" without realizing that there was a winning ticket worth $100,000 among them.

But luckily, a lottery clerk saved Maria Pollard of Chester from losing a tear-jerking $100,000, when she mistakenly threw her tickets in the trash. The lucky winner had actually stopped at the Walmart on Sheila Lane in Richmond and picked three scratch-offs, one of which was a $5 Money Maker Crossword 5X.

Pollard didn't realize, but the ticket held one of the first six $100,000 top prizes, waiting to be claimed. Instead, she threw the ticket off in the trash. Because as per her, none of the tickets she bought appeared to be winners, when she scratched them off.

Luckily a sales associate at Walmart was in all the right senses to double-check the tickets that the would-be winner threw out and informed Pollard that one of the tickets she threw seemed a winner.

Had the lottery clerk not helped her, she would have lost $100,000! So, to affirm her win, she took a trip to the Lottery Office. And to her utter surprise, the ticket she thought of as a “loser” wasn’t a loser after all.

The winner felt all lucky after grabbing her ticket back and hopes to take her family on a vacation this year, which would have not been possible if the clerk wouldn’t have double-checked the tickets before she threw them away.

The Money Maker Crossword 5X game was launched in June and is a part of the Virginia Lottery’s Crossword 5X Series of Scratch-Offs. Now that Pollard has claimed her “almost-missed” prize, there are five top prizes worth $100,000 remaining, as well as 44 out of 48, second prizes of $2000, and 100 out of 117 third prizes of $500, left to claim.

Have you checked your lottery ticket yet? Maybe it’s time to double-check the winning numbers, to not miss your lottery win.