8 hours ago
Clerk helps Michigan woman pick out $500,000 lottery ticket
Michigan resident Amanda Hughes said she bought a scratch-off lottery ticket suggested by a store clerk and scored a $500,000 prize. Photo courtesy of the Michigan Lottery
June 9 (UPI) -- A Michigan woman took a store clerk's suggestion and bought a scratch-off lottery ticket that earned her a $500,000 prize.
Amanda Hughes, 42, who lives in the unincorporated community of Gwinn in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, told Michigan Lottery officials she visited the Kwik Trip on M-553 in Marquette to buy a scratch-off ticket that turned out to be out of stock.
"I don't play scratch off tickets a lot, but I do buy one every once in a while," Hughes said. "When I was at the store, I asked for the $20 Wild Time game, but they had sold out of it, so the clerk suggested 50X Wild Time."
Hughes took the clerk's suggestion -- and discovered it was a lucky move.
"When I scratched the ticket off and saw the prize of $500,000, I wasn't sure if it was real at first," she said. "I thought I must not have read the instructions correctly, so I reread them and then went back into the store to scan the ticket and have the clerk look at it. It was surreal when I realized I really had just won $500,000!"
Hughes said her prize money will go toward buying a house and saving for her children.
"I still can't believe this is real! This money is going to be life changing for my family," she said.
