Handyman buys lottery ticket while on a job and wins big. ‘Not in my little town’
Something unthinkable happened to a man of Blackstone, Virginia.
Willie Lawson, a handyman, won the lottery. Now he had hundreds of times more dollars than there are square miles in his town.
“No way,” he said as he saw the prize, he told lottery officials in a Feb. 9 news release. “Not in my little town.”
Lawson won the $1 million jackpot after playing 20X The Money scratch-off game, according to lottery officials.
The Blackstone resident was on a service call when he bought a ticket at a Belmont Express in Richmond, he told lottery officials.
Lawson had the option to take out a one-time cash prize of $625,000 before taxes or the full million over a span of 30 years. He chose the cash option, according to lottery officials.
“It’s unreal!” he told lottery officials. “I’m still processing it.”
The odds of winning the $1 million top prize were 1-in-1,958,400, according to the Virginia lottery.
The Belmont Express got a $10,000 bonus for selling the lucky ticket.
Blackstone is a town of less than 4,000 people and under 5 square miles, about 65 miles southwest of Richmond.
This story was originally published February 10, 2023 at 3:02 PM with the headline "Handyman buys lottery ticket while on a job and wins big. ‘Not in my little town’."
