LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WTVF) — A Louisville woman won $175,000 after scratching off a Hit The Jackpot Kentucky Lottery ticket at a company holiday party.
Lori Janes, the office manager and treatment coordinator at Harmon Dental Center, was participating in a white elephant gift exchange Tuesday with her coworkers when someone “stole” a $25 TJ Maxx gift card she had received.
Janes was disappointed at first, being a big fan of the store. So, since her gift was taken, the rules of white elephant meant she had to choose another one. She decided to take $25 dollars in scratch-off tickets from someone else.
Since the tickets had already been “stolen”, they were no longer available for anyone else to steal.
“Once it got to me, it was done, and mine to keep. That’s when everyone was telling me to scratch them off,” Janes said.
With everyone sitting around the room, she began to scratch the tickets off. She won $50 on the first ticket and proceeded to scratch off the second.
As Janes scratched off the Hit The Jackpot ticket — which cost the buyer $10 — she was shocked to reveal a win on all 15 spots, meaning she'd landed the game’s top prize of $175,000.
“Everyone was going insane. People were getting their calculators out and double-checking. A couple of people even scanned the ticket on the lottery’s app, just to make sure,” Janes said. “I couldn’t believe it. It was a $25 gift exchange, and I won $175,000!”
Janes called her husband and kids to share the news, but they had a hard time believing her at first. She didn't usually play the lottery; only sometimes would she even buy tickets as gifts for others.
“We figured she didn’t look at it right, but then we heard people in the background celebrating; it became real,” her husband told lottery officials.
Janes, along with her husband and two children, showed up at lottery headquarters hours later, where she received a check.
“This is so crazy. I’m truly blessed,” she said.
After taxes, the winnings amount to $124,250. Janes told lottery officials the money will be used to pay off her daughter’s student loans and the family's cars.
Sunrise Market in Fisherville where the winning scratch-off tickets were sold will receive a $1,750 bonus.
