Louisville woman wins lottery scratch-off prize at company holiday party

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - A Louisville woman has won $175,000 after scratching off a Kentucky Lottery ticket she received at a company holiday party.

According to Kentucky Lottery, Lori Janes was participating in a white elephant gift exchange Tuesday with her coworkers when everything took a shocking and exciting turn.

Before Lori ended up with the lottery ticket, one of her coworkers “stole” a $25 gift card to TJ Maxx from her. Lori was disappointed at first because she loves to shop at TJ Maxx but she took the $25 scratch-off ticket from someone else.

Since the tickets had already been “stolen”, the tickets were no longer available for anyone else to steal.

“Once it got to me, it was done and mine to keep.  That’s when everyone was telling me to scratch them off,” Lori said.

She won $50 on the first ticket and proceeded to scratch-off the second one.

As Lori scratched off the $10 Hit The Jackpot ticket and that is where she won on all 15 spots on her ticket. She won the game’s $175,000 top prize.

“Everyone was going insane.  People were getting their calculators out and double checking.  A couple of people even scanned the ticket on the lottery’s app, just to make sure,” Lori said.

Lori called her husband and kids to share the news, but they had a hard time believing her at first.

“We figured she didn’t look at it right, but then we heard people in the background celebrating, it became real,” her husband told lottery officials.

Lori told Kentucky Lottery they will pay off her daughter’s student loans and their cars with her winnings.

Sunrise Market in Fisherville where the winning scratch-off tickets were sold will receive a $1,750 bonus.

Copyright 2022 WAVE. All rights reserved.