$777K Lottery Ticket Bought By Herndon Man During Scenic Stop

HERNDON, VA — Dhrupal Patel of Herndon was recently returning home after vacationing with his wife and child in the Smoky Mountains. Rather than take the highway, he decided to take the scenic route instead.

That country road took Patel and his family to the Stop & Save on Riverside Drive in Tazewell, Virginia. It was there that Patel bought some coffee, groceries, snacks, and an Electric 7s ticket from the Virginia Lottery.

Patel didn't get a chance to scratch his ticket until he got home. But when he did, he found out that he had won the top prize of $777,777.

“I was not able to talk," Patel later told Lottery officials, according to a release. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Patel, an IT consultant, was the first person to win the top prize in the Electric 7s (game #2067), which offers prizes from $10 to $777,777. Patel said plans to use his winnings to take care of his family.

Two more winning tickets of $777,777 are still out there, according to Lottery officials. While the odds of winning the top prize in Electric 7s are 1 in 1,224,000, the chance of winning any prize in the game is 1 in 3.94.