While en route to Columbia to cash in his winning ticket, a Lowcountry man wasn’t quite convinced he had won the $200,000 top prize, South Carolina Education Lottery officials said in a news release Wednesday.
It was only when staff at the lottery claims center assured him he had won a six-figure jackpot and gave him a check that he was convinced, the press release said.
“It was unbelievable,” the man said in the press release.
That moment of reality almost didn’t happen because the man nearly threw away the scratch card, authorities said.
The man initially thought he had not won anything with the $5 Emerald Green ticket he bought at the Speedway gas station/convenience store on Ladson Road in Ladson, the news release said. He picked up the ticket several days later and threw it away when a family member looked at it again, officials said.
“Oh, wow,” was his reaction when he discovered he was in for a big payout.
The man said he plans to invest the new windfall, but did not provide details.
The winner is allowed to retain some privacy, as South Carolina is one of eleven states (along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia) where lottery winners can remain anonymous.
The odds of winning the $200,000 top prize in the Emerald Green game were 1 in 960,000, the press release said. It was the last of the game’s three top-prize winning tickets that went unclaimed, officials said.
According to the press release, the Speedway received a $2,000 commission for selling the claimed ticket.
