Store clerk's random pick turns astonished customer into $10M scratch off multi-millionaire
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SACRAMENTO – It's common to hear California Lottery players say they often have trouble deciding which Scratchers games to go for. There's a good reason for that.
With over 24 scratch off tickets to choose from at any time, making a choice can often be a fun puzzle.
Brent Young was at Prince Food & Gas in Visalia, looking at the wide selection of lottery scratch offs. He didn't know which one to buy, so he asked the clerk for help.
"I was like just pick whichever one; I didn’t care,” said Brent. The clerk handed him a $30 ticket for a game called California 200X.
After paying for his gas and the ticket, Brent started scratching it. Halfway through, he saw $10,000,000 on the ticket. He had won the top prize!
“When I saw all those zeros, I was like ‘no way, this doesn’t happen to people like me,’” Brent told the California Lottery.
“It’s crazy. Out of all those options, the clerk could have picked a different game. But he didn’t. He grabbed a winner.”
Brent mentioned that normally he wouldn't have been at that gas station. His regular spot was closed that day.
“It’s almost like God’s intervention. I didn’t have a specific ticket I was going to buy, so I let someone else decide,” he said.
“I had no choice but to go to Prince’s. My usual stop was closed. If it had been open, none of this probably would have happened.”
Brent chose to take his prize as a lump sum, which was $5.8 million after taking out federal taxes.
The gas station got lucky too. The owner is collecting a $50,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
