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Winner, winner, chicken dinner – literally.
A Virginia man recently went to the grocery store to buy chicken and came home $500,000 richer.
Russell Gomez, a resident of South Boston, Virginia, told the Virginia Lottery’s website that he recently went to a Food Lion grocery store to buy chicken.
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South Boston is located in southern Virginia, approximately 20 miles north of the North Carolina border.
While shopping, he decided to buy a scratch ticket, specifically a Virginia Lottery “Magnificent 7” scratch ticket.
Russell Gomez, of South Boston, Virginia, had a successful trip to the grocery store and won $500,000 playing a scratch-off game. (image/image)
Gomez, a tractor-trailer driver, got the surprise of a lifetime when he went to write off a ticket in the store’s parking lot.
“I just couldn’t believe it!” he told lottery officials when he redeemed his winning ticket on May 3.
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Gomez told the Virginia Lottery that she plans to use her winnings to pay off vacations she had already planned.
According to the Virginia Lottery, prizes for the game Gomez played, Magnificent 7, ranged from $20 to $500,000.
Gomez told the Virginia Lottery that she plans to use her winnings for a vacation. (image/image)
Additionally, there are two top prizes of $500,000 that have yet to be claimed.
The Virginia Lottery was established in 1987 after Virginians voted in favor of creating a state-run lottery.
The first tickets were sold the following year, according to the Virginia Lottery website.
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Since 1999, Virginia Lottery profits have supported K-12 public education in the commonwealth, according to the Virginia Lottery’s website.
In 2023, this amounted to more than $867 million, which went toward public education in the state.
Virginia Lottery profits support schools across the commonwealth. (Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images/Getty Images)
This represents about 10% of the commonwealth’s K-12 school budget, according to the Virginia Lottery’s website.
These funds are distributed throughout Virginia’s counties.
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Gomez lives in Halifax County, and the Virginia Lottery’s website says the lottery “received more than $4.4 million in Lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year.”
Virginia Lottery’s revenue for fiscal year 2023 was $4.6 billion.
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More than $3.5 billion of those sales were divided between lottery winners and the retailers who sold the winning tickets, according to the lottery’s website.
