Centreville Man Wins $1M Lottery Prize At Westfields Gas Station

CENTREVILLE, VA — Ruben Escalante Palomino stopped for gas at a 7-Eleven in Centreville. He went inside to get a coffee and a doughnut. While he was there, Escalante Palomino also bought two 20X the Money tickets from the Virginia Lottery. When he scratched the first ticket, he won $50. When he scratched the second ticket, it was worth $1 million.

Escalante Palomino bought his winning ticket at the 7-Eleven at 5135 Westfields Blvd. in Centreville. He had the choice of taking the full $1 million prize over 30 years or a one-time cash option of $601,685 before taxes. He chose the cash option. The 7-Eleven received a $10,000 bonus from the Virginia Lottery for selling the winning ticket.

Escalante Palomino, a small business owner, said he intends to use his winnings to invest in his company, which builds and flips houses.

The Centreville man is the first top prize winner in the latest version of 20X the Money. The game features prizes ranging from $10 all the way up to $1 million. The chances of winning the top prize are 1 in 1,224,000. The chances of winning any prize in this game are 1 in 3.51.

Escalante Palomino bought the winning ticket at a 7-Eleven in Fairfax County, whose school system received more than $38.7 million in Lottery funds for K-12 public education last fiscal year.

Operating entirely on revenue from the sale of Lottery products, the Virgina Lottery generated a record $650 million for Virginia’s public schools in fiscal year 2019. An additional $6.5 million in unclaimed prizes was deposited in the Virginia Literary Fund in FY19, which provides low-interest loans to localities for public school construction, renovations and technology upgrades.