A Bluffton, South Carolina, woman told the South Carolina Education Lottery that a routine trip to buy cat food on sale led to a $1 million scratch-off prize. The woman said she visited a Publix store in Bluffton specifically to take advantage of a buy-one-get-one cat food sale before it ended.
“I was really tired, but I needed to get the cat food before the buy one, get one sale ended,” she told lottery officials.
The woman said she had only a few minutes before the store closed and used that time to pick out lottery tickets. She said the timing was close enough that another customer in line might have prevented the purchase.
“If someone would have been in line in front of me, I might not have been able to get the tickets,” she said.
At home, she scratched off the tickets and discovered that one of them — a Millionaire Bonus game — was a $1 million winner. “I couldn’t believe it,” the winner said.
The woman told lottery officials she plans to save the money and intends to keep the win private. “And I’m not telling anyone that I won,” she said.
The South Carolina Education Lottery did not identify the woman by name. The winner’s account was provided through the lottery’s public communications about recent prize claims.