Laura Prado, from Holcomb is sure going to enjoy a positive start to 2018 after winning the first top prize of $100,000 with the Missouri Lottery! Prado, purchased her “Big Money” Scratchers ticket whilst she was out shopping for the day at The Junction, which is located at 419 Church St. in Holcomb at the beginning of December. “Whatever catches my eye and stands out to me? That’s the ones I buy”. Funnily enough, although this ticket clearly caught her eye enough to purchase it, when she checked to see if it was a winner – she thought she may have been seeing things and put her glasses on, and sure enough after fully scratching the ticket the winning figure was revealed. 

The people of Spain, are likely feeling just that little bit more excited than everyone else as millions are participate in the famous annual lottery draw called “El Gordo”. The lottery game, that is often referred to as “The Fat one” is going to be handing out over $2.4 billion euros in prizes this year – although it is called a lottery, the way it works is much more like a raffle as the money is given out to thousands of winning tickets. The top prize that is available per winning ticket is $400,000, following some smaller prizes too. The game costs $20 euros to play, however this $20 does not buy just one ticket -but instead this is broken into 10 smaller parts called “Decimos” which are $2 euros each, so following this your single decimo could land a top prize of $40,000 euros. 

Steven W., from Fort Collins has started his Christmas holidays with the best present he could have possibly received: a $3,000,000 top prize with the Colorado Lottery. Steven, purchased his lottery ticket on Tuesday from the Schrader’s Country Store, which is located at College Avenue - on Harmony Road, the ticket he bought was the $50 Scratch-off game called Bankroll Blast which had only been released the day before his win! His winning ticket happened to be the very first one in the pack, and after removing the coating he realized just how much he’d won from an impulse buy. 

Jose Rodriguez, 45, from La Puente and his girlfriend were on their way to his aunt’s birthday party, which was going to be held in Indio when an emergency stop ended with him winning a $1,000,000 prize unintentionally! Rodriguez, explained how he’d recently had to start taking insulin to help with his Diabetes, “We were in a hurry that morning, so I didn’t have time to eat. On the way, I noticed my blood (glucose) levels dropping, so we had to stop at a Circle K in West Covina, so I could get a couple of candy bars and a drink.” The store was located at 1200 S Glendora Avenue, and whilst there – Rodriguez who is admittedly an avid lottery player, decided to purchase a Winning Million scratch-off ticket for $20. Getting back to his car, he scratched off the ticket to find he was the latest winner of the top $1 million prize that the game offers.

A huge Powerball prize, for a drawing dating back to October has finally been claimed by a family through a Partnership with is called 292 Family Partnership to withhold the winner’s identities for personal privacy purposes. The lottery jackpot, which was worth an estimated $191 million was claimed by the partnership’s attorney: Jean C. Breaux Jr., when she appeared at the Lottery headquarters on behalf of the clients’ consisting of three individuals’. Speaking on behalf of the individual’s, the attorney explained that the family play the lottery regularly and even kept copies of all their tickets. Interestingly, regarding the winning ticket on this occasion – the ticket was taken on a helicopter and back on a work trip and it wasn’t until a conversation occurred between the individual, and someone else in the partnership that they realized he’d checked the numbers against an older ticket, rather than the correct winning ticket.

Gilbert Sandoval, was on his way to pick his daughter up from the airport when he decided to stop off at a gas station as he needed some more gas for the trip. After stopping off at Whittier am/pm, he thought that he might as well buy himself a scratchers ticket whilst he was there – so he purchased the $5 Set for Life Scratchers ticket before continuing his journey on the Freeway. It was only when he stopped at a red light, near LAX that he decided to check the ticket – and can you believe it, he saw the word “LIFE” across the bottom which meant that he had won a $3 million prize. “I just did a double-take! I opened my console and then put it in there. You know, I still haven’t heard whether it’s illegal to scratch at a red light,” he laughed. 

Leon Greenberg, and his wife have a lot less to worry about after winning a $7,000,000 jackpot with the New York Lottery. The couple, recently went on a trip to the casino and had some money left over, so his wife – Karin decided to purchase a lottery ticket for him from the BP gas station, which is located at 155 S. Highland Ave. in Ossining in New York. Now, Leon has never played the lottery before so when his wife came home with the $25 scratched off Cash Blowout ticket worth $7 million, he thought that she must have made a mistake. “You just don’t win $7 million” he said. However, he signed off the back of the ticket just to be safe and has gone on to claim his prize as a lump sum, which is worth $4,632,600 after tax and federal withholdings.