Two years ago, Peggy Dodson bought a lucky scratch-off lottery ticket at her local convenience store that turned out to be a $100,000 winner. But the Pennsylvania woman's lucky streak was far from over.
Dodson, 72, recently walked into the same store where she bought her previous winning lottery ticket to claim a second prize — but this time, it was a $1 million jackpot.
Dodson cried when she realized she'd won the lottery again, and an even bigger prize this time, according to a press release from Pennsylvania Lottery officials.
"I cried, I couldn't help it. I just thank God," says Dodson, who also laid out the plans she and her husband, Ottis, have for their latest windfall. "We're going to pay our mortgage off, we'll pay our truck off and we'll go to the Grand Canyon and Alaska!" Dodson says in the press release.
Dodson, who decided to buy her winning "Max-a-Million" ticket because she liked that the scratch-off was "the color purple," told the Lancaster Online newspaper on Thursday that she usually buys her daily lottery ticket at the same store.
Buying lottery tickets is one of Dodson's only vices, she says.
"I don't drink. I don't smoke. But I love to play the lottery," she tells Lancaster Online, adding that she plans to continue buying lottery tickets.
Dodson's most recent winning "Max-a-Million" scratch-off ticket cost $20 and offers five top prizes of $1 million in total, with odds of 1 in 1.32 million to win the top prize. In 2017, Dodson's $100,000 win came on a "Family Feud" scratch-off ticket with odds of 1 in 1.08 million to win.
The store where Dodson bought both winning scratch-off tickets, Peterson's Grocery Outlet of Peach Bottom, Pa., stands to receive a $5,000 bonus for selling her most recent winner. The store's owner, Tracy Peterson, told Lancaster Online that he's known Dodson for a long time and that the local community is thrilled she won a second lottery jackpot. "Everybody's happy for her," Peterson says of Dodson.
Dodson will receive her prize as a lump-sum cash payment of $1 million, according to the rules of the "Max-a-Million" scratch-off game posted on the state lottery's website. The prize is subject to typical federal and state tax charges, which include a 24% federal tax hit and state taxes of roughly 3% in Pennsylvania.
Other lottery players across the country currently have their eyes fixed on the growing multimillion-dollar grand prizes for the Mega Millions and Powerball lottery games.
After no winners emerged from the most recent drawings earlier this week, the Mega Millions jackpot jumped to $444 million for the next drawing on Friday. And the Powerball jackpot for Saturday night's drawing is now at $350 million.
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