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US: Dad visits store to buy chocolate milk; wins $1 million lottery

He is the second winner of the $1 million prize.

Dennis Willoughby, a father from North Chesterfield in Richmond, Virginia, visited a local 7-Eleven convenience store for chocolate milk, and ended up winning a Virginia Lottery scratch card for $1 million.

At the store, he happened to daydream about winning the lottery, and thus purchased a Virginia Lottery $1,000,000 Platinum Jackpot scratch card too. On hearing of his win, an overjoyed Dennis was lost for words. He is the second winner of the $1 million prize.

The Virginia Lottery offers three $1 million tickets in total, as well as thousands of tickets of other denominations, ranging from $10 to $10,000. As explained by the Virginia Lottery website, while the odds of winning any of their lottery tickets was 1 in 3.92, only 1 in 1,632,000 people stood the chance of winning the top prize.

"Authorized by Virginia voters in a successful 1987 referendum, the Virginia Lottery generates more than $2 million per day for Virginia’s K-12 public schools. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, lottery customers helped generate more than $765 million in funding for public education," according to the official VA Lottery website.

Dennis was later offered a choice of being paid either the full $1 million prize in annual payments over 30 years, or $640,205 before taxes, as a one-time lump-sum payment. He chose the second option. The 7-Eleven store at 9700 Jeff Davis Highway in Richmond also received a bonus of $10,000 for selling one of the winning tickets.