Husband shows wife a winning lottery ticket after work. ‘Her mouth dropped wide open’

A 61-year-old man stopped at a gas station on his way to work and decided to buy two Iowa lottery tickets.

On his lunch break, James Holston scratched the “White Ice” game tickets and realized each one was worth a small prize, according to a news release from the Iowa Lottery.

But his winning streak wasn’t over yet.

Holston, who works for the University of Dubuque’s security department, stopped at a Kwik Stop on his way home from work to buy a third $10 “White Ice” ticket.

And that one was a winner, too.

“I thought, ‘Oh, well, it’s going to be another one of those small winners. We never get any big winners here in Dubuque,’” he recalled to lottery officials. “When I saw it, I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’”

He used the Iowa Lottery mobile app to scan his ticket — and it confirmed this was no small prize, according to the release.

“Man, to my surprise, that thing said $100,000,” Holston said when claiming his prize on Aug. 10. “I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness!’”

He went home to his wife, but he didn’t tell her about his big win right away. Instead, he showed her one of his tickets with a smaller prize.

“She scanned it and said, ‘Hey! $20! You doubled your money,’” Holston told lottery officials. “I said, ‘I have another one over there. Scan that.’ She scanned it and when it came up on her phone, her mouth dropped wide open. I thought, ‘Yep! That’s what I thought!’”

The couple plans to use their winnings on new vinyl siding, a new home air-conditioning system and other home improvements, officials said.

This story was originally published August 15, 2023 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Husband shows wife a winning lottery ticket after work. ‘Her mouth dropped wide open’."