This Virginia Lotto winner has a million-dollar smile. Thankfully, he’s got the unbelievable luck to back it – two times over.
Lottery officials recently announced a player from Chesapeake won $1 million on their Extreme Millions scratch-off game.
Amazingly, the same man won a $2.5 million jackpot on a different Virginia Lotto scratcher game seven years earlier.
And, if we’re being honest, he’s got a mug that’s meant for the lotto’s winners gallery.
Standing out in the Virginia Lotto crowd
If you scroll through the Virginia Lotto’s lengthy list of major winners, you see the happy faces.
Sure, some of the recent winners look a bit mysterious because of their face masks. But before the COVID-19 pandemic, you saw their wide eyes, the ear-to-ear-grins, and the clear relief that comes from an unexpected financial windfall.
Then there’s Michael Worsham. He’s the two-time winner who recently scored his second seven-figure jackpot.
And he definitely sticks out from the crowd.
In each of his lottery winner photos – the one from 2014 and the recent 2021 version – his smile is as wide as the Shenandoah Valley. Sure, he’s lost a little hair and some of that baby face over the years. But he’s gained plenty.
Namely? About $3.5 million in winnings.
Details of Michael Worsham’s lotto wins
Worsham’s first win came in December 2014. That’s when he scored the top prize from the Right on the Money scratcher.
He won that $2.5 million jackpot from a ticket he bought at a 7-Eleven (1025A North Eden Way) in his hometown of Chesapeake.
His second win came at a different 7-Eleven (1488 Butts Station Road), but it was nearly as impressive. He won $1 million on Extreme Millions. The game has a top prize of $10 million (the largest among all Virginia Lotto scratchers), but Worsham snagged one the second-place prizes for $1 million.
Each time, Worsham took the cash option instead of payments over 25 years (for the first jackpot) or 30 years (the second).
That decision resulted in an official payout of $1,437,500 (before taxes) for Right on the Money in 2014 and $657,030 for Extreme Millions this month.
A reminder about Virginia Lotto odds
We should probably include a word of caution here.
Winning two jackpots of a million bucks or more is impressive. It’s amazing. It’s also unbelievably, unimaginably unlikely to happen.
Roughly speaking, it was a 1-in-a-million shot followed by another 1-in-a-million shot seven years later.
And while we might simply write it off as one Virginia Lotto player being unbelievably lucky, we don’t know the true odds. After all, how many losing tickets did the player buy before he got the winning ones? While he has $3.5 million in winnings on paper, we don’t know exactly how much he’s got in the bank.
Additionally, the winner’s latest $1 million payday came on a $30 scratcher. The first one came on a $20 ticket.
For most lotto players, that’s some serious money to spend for a scratcher, which often cost just a buck or two. Sure, some of the prizes on these more expensive games are huge, but most players are going to come up empty-handed. Do you really have an extra $20 or $30 to spare on such a long shot?
In fairness to our latest winner, we don’t know his specific situation. We do know that he’s a small-business owner who said he planned to use his first winnings on his kids’ college educations. And the second one? “He plans to invest his winnings and take care of his kids,” according to lotto officials.
And see, that’s enough to make a man smile.
