BURLINGTON, Ky. — Not long before they planned to celebrate their anniversary, a Florence man who wished to remain anonymous stopped into the Kroger on Patrick Drive in Burlington, Ky.
The man told lottery officials that, inside the Kroger, he walked past the lottery vending machine on his way out the door.
"I didn't feel lucky for that one, so I walked all the way down to the other side of the store," he said. "So, I was walking back and stopped at customer service. That's when I asked for ticket number one."
After he bought the Millionaire Club Scratch-off ticket, he headed home. Once there, he began to scratch off the ticket.
When he realized the numbers on the ticket matched, he began to scratch off the prize from right to left.
"It's usually tiny little zeroes, which means you've won like $75, but I saw the big zero and thought I'd won $100, but there was another zero, so I thought it was $1,000, and then there was another zero and another zero until I saw a million," he said.
From there, the man headed outside, where his wife was sitting. When he told her the news, he said she began laughing and crying at the same time.
After taxes, the couple collected $710,000 from lottery headquarters just days before the high school sweethearts would celebrate their wedding anniversary.
"I told her I gave her a million dollars for our anniversary," said the man.
The couple told lottery officials they plan to take a family vacation and save the winnings for the woman's retirement.
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