Thomas Ronemous, from Waterloo, Iowa, won a top prize playing Iowa Lottery’s “Cash Line” scratch game. Ronemous bought his winning ticket at New Star Liquor, 1625 W, Fourth St. in Waterloo. He then took it home to scratch it later. "The very first number I matched," he explained. "I usually don't scratch off how much I win until I get through the whole card, but for some reason I did. I saw $50 and I thought I won $50, and I thought, 'All right, cool, that's good.' He then spotted part of a zero, continued scratching and was shocked to discover that he had won the $50,000 top prize. It was the 11^th of the 14 top prizes in the game. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaimed. "My wife works at another store that sells lottery, so I ran up there. I wanted to have them scan it to verify it because I was in total disbelief." "I showed her the ticket and she took off running to the back to show her manager, and I'm like, 'Wait a minute! That's my ticket!' He said while laughing. Thomas collected his prize from the Lottery’s cedar rapids regional office on his birthday. “It’s a heck of a birthday present” he said as he went on to celebrate his birthday in style. The respiratory therapist plans to use his winnings to pay bills and potentially take a trip abroad.