A man in Fairfax, Virginia, decided on a whim to buy a few scratch-off tickets from the lottery machine after doing some grocery shopping.
And that decision paid off.
Alexandr Pichshev recently won $5 million on the “$326,000,000 Fortune ticket” scratch-off game at the Safeway at 3043 Nutley Street in Fairfax, according to a news release from the Virginia Lottery.
“It was unexpected,” Pichshev of Fairfax City told Virginia Lottery officials. “I showed the ticket to the store manager, and he told me to sign the ticket.”
The chances of winning the top prize are 1 in 2,774,400 and the chances of winning any prize in the game Pichshev won in are 1 in 3.43, lottery officials said.
Pichshev took the cash option of $3,125,000 before tax, instead of the $5 million in payments over 30 years.
The Virginia Lottery said this is the second top prize claimed in the game and that only one more top prize remains. The game features prizes ranging from $50 to the top $5 million prize.
All Virginia Lottery profits go to funding K-12 education in Virginia.
See a map of the Safeway location where the ticket was purchased below.
