Wife asks husband to buy a Missouri lottery ticket. The one he picked left her ‘numb’

A Missouri woman will reap rewards for the rest of her life thanks to a little favor she asked of her husband.

The Benton County woman asked her husband to buy her a lottery ticket on his way home Jan. 28, and he purchased a Cash4Life ticket from a convenience store in Cole Camp, Missouri Lottery officials said in a Feb. 14 news release.

The ticket he picked for that night’s drawing would win her one of the largest prizes in Cash4Life.

“When I saw it, I was just numb!” she said. “I had someone else check it, and I thought for sure it was a mistake!”

Her ticket matched all five white-ball numbers that were drawn — 22, 40, 45, 54 and 60 — to win the game’s second-best prize of $1,000 a week for life.

Winners of the prize can choose a lump-sum payment of $1 million or annual installments of $52,000. Lottery officials did not say which option she chose.

Odds of winning the prize are 1 in 7,282,016. The game also offers a jackpot prize of $1,000 a day for life.

She told lottery officials she wasted no time calling her husband to share the good news.

“I was sitting in my recliner and she calls me,” her husband said. “And I told her I was getting my shoes on so we could go to Jefferson City!”

Cole Camp is about a 110-mile drive southeast from Kansas City.

This story was originally published February 18, 2025 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Wife asks husband to buy a Missouri lottery ticket. The one he picked left her ‘numb’."