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Winner, winner, chicken dinner – literally.
A Virginia man recently went to the supermarket to buy chicken – and came back half a million dollars richer.
Russell Gomes of South Boston, Virginia, recently went to the Food Lion supermarket to buy chicken, he told the Virginia Lottery website.
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South Boston is located in southern Virginia, about 20 miles north of the North Carolina border.
While shopping, he decided to buy a scratch-off ticket – specifically, the Virginia Lottery’s “Magnificent 7s” scratch-off ticket.
A trip to the supermarket was well worth it for Russell Gomes of South Boston, Virginina – he won $500,000 on a scratch-off ticket. (iStock/iStock)
Gomes, a tractor driver, went to scratch off the ticket in the store’s parking lot – and got the surprise of his life.
“I really didn’t believe it!” he told lottery officials when he claimed his winning ticket on May 3. “It’s great!
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Gomes told the Virginia Lottery that she plans to use her winnings to pay for a vacation she had already booked.
Magnificent 7s, the game Gomes played, has prizes ranging from $20,000 to $500,000, the Virginia Lottery said.
Gomes told the Virginia Lottery he will use his winnings to go on vacation. (iStock/iStock)
There are two additional top prizes of $500,000 that have not been claimed, they said.
The Virginia Lottery was created in 1987 after Virginians voted to create a state-run lottery.
The first tickets were sold the following year, the Virginia Lottery website reported.
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Since 1999, Virginia Lottery profits have supported public K-12 education in the commonwealth, its website said.
In 2023, this totaled more than $867 million that was allocated to public education in the state.
Virginia Lottery profits support schools in the commonwealth. (Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images/Getty Images)
That represents about 10% of the commonwealth’s budget for elementary and secondary schools, the Virginia Lottery website said.
These funds are distributed across Virginia counties.
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Gomes lives in Halifax County, noted the Virginia Lottery website, which received “more than $4.4 million in lottery funds for basic education in the last fiscal year.”
During fiscal year 2023, the Virginia Lottery had sales of $4.6 billion.
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From those sales, more than $3.5 billion was distributed to lottery winners and the retailers who sold the winning tickets, the lottery website said.
