Winner Winner: Virginia Man Treats Himself to Chicken and Wins $500,000
![Winner Winner: Virginia Man Treats Himself to Chicken and Wins 0,000 Winner Winner: Virginia Man Treats Himself to Chicken and Wins 0,000](https://i1.wp.com/a57.foxnews.com/static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.com/content/uploads/2024/04/931/523/iStock-458965689.jpg?ve=1&tl=1&w=931&resize=931,523&ssl=1)
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Winner, winner, chicken dinner – literally.
A Virginia man recently went to the grocery store to buy chicken — and came away half a million dollars richer.
Russell Gomes, of South Boston, Virginia, recently went to the Food Lion grocery store to buy chicken, he said on the Virginia Lottery website.
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South Boston is located in southern Virginia, approximately 20 miles north of the North Carolina border.
While he was shopping, he decided to purchase a scratch-off ticket, specifically the Virginia Lottery “Magnificent 7s” scratcher.
![Winner Winner: Virginia Man Treats Himself to Chicken and Wins 0,000 Winner Winner: Virginia Man Treats Himself to Chicken and Wins 0,000](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.com/content/uploads/2024/04/931/523/iStock-458965689.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
A trip to the grocery store paid off for Russell Gomes of South Boston, Virginia: he won $500,000 in a scratch-off game. (iStock/iStock)
Gomes, a tractor-trailer driver, went to scratch his ticket in the store parking lot – and got the surprise of his life.
“I really didn’t believe it!” he told lottery officials when he redeemed his winning ticket on May 3. “It’s awesome !
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Gomes told the Virginia Lottery that he planned to use his winnings to pay for a vacation he already had scheduled.
Magnificent 7, the game Gomes played, offers prizes ranging from $20 to $500,000, the Virginia Lottery said.
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Gomes told the Virginia Lottery that he would use his winnings to go on vacation. (iStock/iStock)
There are two additional top prizes of $500,000 that have not been claimed, they said.
The Virginia Lottery was established in 1987, after Virginians voted to create a state-run lottery.
The first tickets were sold the following year, the Virginia Lottery website says.
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Since 1999, Virginia Lottery profits have supported K-12 public education in the Commonwealth, its website states.
By 2023, that amounted to more than $867 million spent on public education in the state.
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Virginia Lottery profits support schools across the Commonwealth. (Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)
That represented about 10 percent of the commonwealth’s budget for elementary and secondary schools, the Virginia Lottery website says.
These funds are distributed across all counties in Virginia.
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Gomes lives in Halifax County, said the Virginia Lottery website, which received “more than $4.4 million in lottery funds for K-12 education over the past year. ‘last financial year’.
In fiscal year 2023, the Virginia Lottery had $4.6 billion in revenue.
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Of those sales, more than $3.5 billion was distributed to lottery winners and retailers who sold winning tickets, the lottery website says.
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