Stafford Women Plan To Buy New Houses After Winning VA Lottery

STAFFORD COUNTY, VA — Two Stafford women won big prizes playing the Virginia Lottery, with one woman winning $2,777,777 and the other winning $1.2 million.

When Michelle Rivera scratched a Lucky 7s Cash Blowout ticket from the Virginia Lottery and realized she had just won the game’s $2,777,777 top prize, she couldn’t contain her excitement.

“I kept saying, ‘I can’t believe I won,’” she told Lottery officials as she claimed her prize.

Rivera, who bought her winning ticket at the 7-Eleven at 910 Garrisonville Road in Stafford, waited more than four months before redeeming her ticket. She said she took the time to make a financial plan for her winnings. She told lottery officials that she intends to buy a house and pay off debt.

She had the choice of taking the $2,777,777 prize in annual payments over 30 years or a one-time cash option of $1,671,346 before taxes. She chose the annual payments.

Luck 7s Cash Blowout is one of dozens of Scratchers currently offered by the Virginia Lottery. It features prizes ranging from $20 up to $2,777,777. Rivera is the first player to redeem a top prize winning ticket in this game, which means two more are unclaimed.

The odds of winning that top prize are 1 in 979,200, while the odds of winning any prize in this game are 1 in 3.11.

The other winner from Stafford, Anya Dennis, received a call from her husband who was shouting in the phone because the couple had matched all five numbers in the Virginia Lottery’s Cash 5 game. They had bought 12 tickets for the June 14 drawing, all with the same five numbers. That means each ticket won the game’s $100,000 top prize, for a total winnings of $1.2 million.

Dennis said she began screaming, too. “I thought, ‘This cannot be real,’” she told lottery officials.

All 12 winning tickets were bought at the 7-Eleven at 4800 Dale Boulevard in Dale City. The winning numbers for that drawing were 9-13-19-26-29.

Dennis said she intends to use the winnings to buy a house and pay for college for her two daughters.

Cash 5 drawings are held daily at 1:59 p.m. and 11 p.m. The odds of winning the $100,000 top prize are 1 in 278,256.

The Virginia Lottery generates more than $1.7 million per day for Virginia’s K-12 public schools.