Cody Clement of Disputanta, Va., had a very lucky New Year's Eve.
First, he played a Virginia Lottery scratcher game and won $50. He used his winnings to play the Redskins Mania Scratcher game. When he scratched it, he quickly realized it won the top-prize of $1 million.
"I was running. I was screaming," the 21-year old told Lottery officials. "I went home and woke everyone up. We've been jumping all weekend."
Mr. Clement had the choice of taking his prize as either $1 million over 25 years or an immediate cash option of $573,000. He chose the cash option.
He bought the winning ticket at Salem Brothers Inc., located at 11420 South Crater Road in Petersburg, Va. The store receives a $10,000 bonus from the Lottery for selling a $1 million winner.
Mr. Clement is the first player to claim the top prize of $1 million over 25 years in Redskins Mania, which means there are still two top-prize tickets yet to be claimed.
There is also one final second chance Redskins prize drawing for non-winning tickets on Friday March 26, 2010 -- be sure to register your non-winning tickets for the last chance to win Redskins season tickets for 20 years, 2010 Redskins season tickets, an autographed game worn jersey, and much, much more. Get in the game!
Nearly 95 cents of each dollar spent on the Virginia Lottery by players goes back to the Commonwealth in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retailer commissions.
Since 1999, all Virginia Lottery profits have been designated solely to K-12 public school education in the Commonwealth. In that time, the Lottery has turned over more than $4 billion for Virginia's public schools. The latest annual profits of $439.1 million currently represent about 7 percent of state funding for public education in Virginia.
In 21 years, the Lottery has sold more than $21.1 billion in tickets, awarded more than $1.1 billion in retailer commissions and paid more than $11.6 billion in prizes to players.
