Excited lottery player can't keep big win to himself as he runs errands in WA
A lottery player was so excited about his big win in Washington that he couldn't keep the news to himself.
The man bought two Lucky Stars scratch-off tickets at a Fred Meyer grocery store in Bremerton, Washington's Lottery said in a June 18 news release.
He then got on a bus and scratched the $5 tickets, lottery officials said.
His first ticket didn't win anything, but his second ended up being worth $50,000, lottery officials said.
The man got off the bus, and that's when 'the shock set in,' lottery officials said.
He checked the ticket several times and confirmed his win by scanning the ticket with his lottery app.
The lucky lottery player was so excited that he went into a coffee shop and told the owner. He also stopped at his optometrist's office to get his glasses and shared the good news.
After his errands were done, he went to the lottery office to claim his big prize.
He then returned to Fred Meyer to share the news with the workers there, the lottery office said.
He plans to use the prize money to buy a mobile home and put the rest into savings.
Bremerton is a ferry ride southwest from Seattle.
Many people can gamble or play games of chance without harm. However, for some, gambling is an addiction that can ruin lives and families.
If you or a loved one shows signs of gambling addiction, you can seek help by calling the national gambling hotline at 1-800-522-4700 or visiting the National Council on Problem Gambling website.
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She works in the entertainment business every so often, with sets hiring her to handle snakes featured in film and television. "I can charge upwards of a thousand dollars a day. So, if I get two or three really good set gigs over the year, it'll help me make my bills," Wall explains. "But I'm still in the red every year on terms of upkeep on just the snake stuff." It's an uphill battle, but it's worth it to the California native. She wants to see the state's animal control laws evolve toward a more humane approach. Other parts of the country don't require the vipers to be killed when caught. Elsewhere, there are wildlife facilities that offer rattlesnake relocation training classes and seminars. "There's other states that are already doing this, and that's how California should be. It shouldn't be that it is just me," she says. Wall admits that she gets anxiety doing publicity for herself, whether she's speaking to the press, appearing on a screen or posting for her substantial social media audience. She pushes on because she knows more attention will help her change her state's Fish and Game official protocol for handling rattlesnakes. "When I did some research, that's how a lot of other states ended up getting laws changed: Publicity," she notes. "Enough of the community was in an uproar over the killing. They were able to push for each individual county and eventually the state to uphold those laws." Sometimes her means of advocacy is misread. People challenge her motives. "I get people online that are like, 'You do this for the fame and money,'" says Wall. "And I love that people do question me, because there are people that claim to do good and they're evil. So I always say, 'Please question me.' I love to be able to prove that I'm doing this for the right reasons over and over and over." She can sense when someone is in the rattlesnake wrangling business for the wrong reasons. Those people usually wave the bright red flag of a competitive attitude. "People are like, 'Well, Danielle, you must not want more snake wranglers coming out and taking your job.' I'm like, 'What do you mean f------ taking my job?'" Wall says. "There's always snakes to save. I could use 10 helpers that I could trust, and I would be so grateful." In Wall's experience, men can be particularly competitive with her, though the snake wrangling is generally a male-dominated field. Wall has had her fair share of sexist remarks since that first "Sit down, little girl." But she's also learned that snake biting is a male-focused area, too. While she was researching the reptiles, she learned that hospital data largely shows snake bites on men 75% to 80% of the time. "There's a guy at Loma Linda [University] that does the presentations and lectures and seminars on snakes, and he's like, 'The two main reasons for rattlesnake bites are testosterone and booze,'" Wall explains. "And he is a middle-aged man, and he has no shame of being like, 'Men are dumb sometimes.' Because that's how it is in the bite world." Not unlike the rattlesnakes that lash out, Wall calls men the "number one" thing that scares her. But having grown up with brothers, it's not that she's intimidated, nor that she hates men in general. "It's more so the fact that these other male snake wranglers have to be better than me," she says. "If that's your goal, you're in it for the wrong reasons. Because I didn't get into this to be the best, I got into it to have a purpose in life." That really is how it boils down. Rattlesnakes came into Wall's life when she needed something bigger to guide her, something that she could do and feel good doing. Somehow, the timing has always made sense; in addition to her advocacy motive, these reptiles continue to pull her out of her lowest lows. One December saw Wall deeply depressed. She was going through a "pretty gnarly" breakup, and snakes rarely come out in the winter months. Without wrangling requests on her phone, she really couldn't bring herself up and out of bed. Over the course of months, she lost weight and fell further into that dark place. On the other side of winter, the sun warmed up the desert again. Snakes started to come out of hiding, and Wall's sense of happiness returned with the snake calls. "It was a very pivotal moment of just figuring out what makes me happy, why I do what I do, why I am the way I am," she recalls to PEOPLE, with an emotional catch to her voice. "I didn't realize how much the snakes actually gave me the purpose to get up ... I saved snakes and they saved me." Read the original article on People
