Radford University student Sukanya Patterson was about to head home for spring break when she stopped at the 7-Eleven next to campus. While she was there, she bought five “Weekly Grand” tickets from the Virginia Lottery.
Later, when she scratched her tickets, she discovered that one was a top prize winner, worth $1,000 per week for ten years.
“I didn’t scream. I just froze,” she said.
Ms. Patterson lives in Newport News. She’s a freshman at Radford studying interior design. She had the choice of taking the full prize over ten years or a one-time cash option of $469,820 She chose the cash option.
The odds of winning the top prize in Weekly Grand are 1 in 4,222,800. The odds of winning any prize in this game are 1 in 4.6. Those lesser prizes range from $2 to $10,000. She’s the first person to claim the top prize, which means three more remain unclaimed.
She said she intends to use her winnings to pay for her education.
When it comes to education, the Virginia Lottery is game. Ms. Patterson’s hometown of Newport News received more than $26.7 million in lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year. She bought the winning ticket in Radford City, which received nearly $700,000 in lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year.
