In what can simply be chalked up as an ordinary shopping trip turned extraordinary, Danita Wright, a 65-year-old resident of St. Johns County, landed herself a million-dollar windfall courtesy of a Florida Lottery scratch-off ticket, a 500X THE CASH game to be exact, which she purchased from a Publix supermarket located at 2845 County Road 210 West in Jacksonville. First Coast News detailed the announcement made by the Florida Lottery yesterday, which sent Wright into the millionaires' orbit.
Not one to wait out the annuity, Wright opted for a one-time, lump-sum payment which amounted to $640,000—a figure that surely pads the wallet but doesn't quite have the same ring as that elusive million-dollar headline, and as luck would have it, the very same Publix market gets to pocket a $2,000 bonus commission for their role in selling the golden ticket; this enticing tidbit was uncovered by News4JAX, who also pointed out that the $50 500X THE CASH game is not only challenging players with odds of 1-in-4.23 but dangling the carrot that is the highest top prize ever offered by a Florida Scratch-Off game at $25 million—with more than $1.66 billion in prizes up for grabs, it's a lottery aficionados fantasy, really.
A potential brush with that $25 million pinnacle of scratch-off glory might have slipped through Wright's fingers; however, she still managed to land a second-tier prize, no small feat in an ocean of scratch-off hopefuls, as noted by Centre Daily. It was in Tallahassee that the 65-year-old claimed her winnings, with another elated Sarasota County man snapping up a top prize from the same game—meaning just one more remains for those itching for their chance at scratch-off stardom.
