While John Coker generally does not play $20 Scratchers tickets, a few recent lucky choices ended with the Willow Springs man winning a $100,000 prize on a Missouri Lottery “$4,000,000 Payout” game.
Coker had won $20 on a $3 ticket and cashed it in at Town & Country Supermarket, 719 E. Main St., in Willow Springs. While looking over tickets in the Lottery vending machine for his next purchase, none immediately caught his eye in his regular $3 or $5 price range. That prompted him to try a different approach.
“I decided to splurge one time,” he explained.
He decided to try “$4,000,000 Payout” and began scratching the $20 ticket.
“I saw I had a number that matched,” he recalled. “When I saw the prize, I about died from shock!”
After examining the ticket several times to make sure he was not imagining things, and asking his son to do the same, Coker realized he really had won a $100,000 prize.
In the most recent fiscal year, players in Howell County won more than $6.3 million in Missouri Lottery prizes. Retailers in the county received more than $638,000 in commissions and bonuses, and an additional $3.6 million went to educational programs in the county. To see a detailed list of programs that benefited, visit MOLottery.com.
