Man scratches off grand-prize Kentucky Lottery ticket. ‘Biggest number I’d ever seen’

Daily lottery player Russell Turner watched a clerk add a new roll of scratch-off tickets after he purchased the final two recently at a Shell station in Kentucky.

Turner just couldn’t help himself, so he bought a few more.

The fourth ticket the Somerset, Kentucky, man scratched off was the grand prize in the Kentucky Lottery’s Diamond Dazzler game — a $2 million winner.

“I thought I was having a heart attack,” Turner told lottery officials.

He normally scratches off the numbers, but because he was in a hurry to get to work, he scratched the ticket’s barcode on March 8 and scanned it to see if he had won any money.

“I saw the biggest number I’d ever seen in my life. I started shaking and screaming,” Turner said.

Turner wasted no time driving to the Kentucky Lottery headquarters, traveling there later that day. He opted for the lump sum cash payment and walked away with a check for $1,236,820.

Being a single dad, Turner said he could “really use the money.” But he does plan on splurging a little, with intentions to buy his dream car — a Hellcat.

This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Man scratches off grand-prize Kentucky Lottery ticket. ‘Biggest number I’d ever seen’."