Florida Woman Wins $1M from a $50 Scratch-off Ticket

Earlier this week, a fortunate lottery player from Panama City, Florida, was pleasantly surprised by a mind-blowing $1 million win from one of the Florida Lottery’s popular scratch-off games, the $1,000,000 A YEAR FOR LIFE SPECTACULAR. The Lottery uncovered details regarding the lucky winner, whose name is Josephine Galarza.

The 36-year-old woman from Bay County bought her winning ticket from Speedway Food Mart at 3000 West Highway 98 in Panama City. The retailer that sold the winning top prize ticket will benefit from a $2,000 bonus, the Lottery confirmed.

Considering that she claimed one of the two top prizes, there’s only one such prize remaining in play. The odds of winning the grand prize from the $1,000,000 A YEAR FOR LIFE SPECTACULAR scratch-off ticket is 1 in 21,727,995.

Galarza was presented with a choice, and she decided to collect her winnings as a one-time lump cash sum payment. Visiting Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee, the fortunate 36-year-old woman collected her $640,000 win earlier this week.

According to the Florida Lottery, scratch-off games represent an important share of its portfolio of games. For the fiscal year 2022-2023, scratch-off games represented 72% of the sales.

Thanks to the wide range of scratch-off games offered by the Lottery, some 2,103 people have become millionaires, while nearly $62 billion in prizes have been awarded.

The proceeds from scratch-off games help benefit Florida’s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund. So far, a sum of more than $18.95 billion has been dedicated to the fund.

The Scratch-off Game Offers Plenty of Prizes

Upon launching the $1,000,000 A YEAR FOR LIFE SPECTACULAR scratch-off game, there were two grand prizes up for grabs and a total of 234 prizes of $1 million each. The odds of winning a second-tier prize of $1 million are 1 in 185,709, while the odds of winning a third-tier $50,000 prize are 1 in 120,711.

Out of the initial 234 prizes of $1 million each, a total of 90 remain in play. On the other hand, out of the 360 prizes of $50,000 each at the start, now, there are 134 such prizes outstanding.

Within the lower-tier payouts, there were 2,163 prizes of $20,000 each at the launch of the Lottery’s scratch-off game. With odds 1 in 20,091, a total of 808 such prizes remain in play.

The overall odds of winning a prize from the $50 scratch-off game are 1 in 4.5.