Man Stopping for Snacks at Grocery Store Takes a Chance on the Lottery and Wins $100K Prize: 'Doesn't Feel Real'

Mar. 15, 2025

Lixander Paniagua-Maravilla.Photo:Virginia Lottery

Virginia Lottery

Getting a snack has never been so rewarding.

“I screamed a little bit,” Lixander Paniagua-Maravilla toldVirginia Lotteryofficials.

Paniagua-Maravilla had purchased a Let’s Make a Deal ticket at the Virginia Beach grocery store, winning the game’s top prize. One more of the prizes remains, officials said. (The game features prizes that range from $5 to $100,000, with the odds of winning the biggest payout at 1 in 1,305,600.)

Paniagua-Maravilla, a carpenter, hasn’t decided what he’ll do with the prize money yet.

“It feels surreal,” he said upon learning that he’d won the lottery. “It doesn’t feel real.”

All earnings from the Virginia Lottery go to the state’s school districts. According to the organization, during the 2024 fiscal year, more than $934 million was raised for education, making up approximately 10% of the state’s school budget.

Meanwhile, a 26-year-old Michigan woman made headlines in February whenshe won $4 million on a lottery ticketshe received as a random gift from her dad

The winning ticket, a $150,000,000 Spectacular, was purchased at Light House Liquor in Oak Park, according toMichigan Lottery officials.

The Oakland County woman, who has remained anonymous, said her father gifted her the $30 lottery ticket “just because.”

“I was surprised when he handed it to me, and I asked him why he bought it for me,” the woman told lottery officials, adding that the gesture “was really nice.”

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When she learned she had won the top prize, the woman said she “screamed” and “cried.”

“When I scratched the ticket off, I was stunned to see that it was a $4 million winner,” she recalled. “I had so many emotions going through my body. … I was and still am shocked I won $4 million.”

source: people.com