Maybe lightning can strike in the same place twice.
A lucky Ocean County couple just won $3 million on a scratch-off ticket after already winning $1 million on a scratch-off back on April 1. No fooling!
The New Jersey Lottery announced that a NJ couple with two children and a third on the way beat the two million to one odds to win the grand prize in the rewly-released Jackpot Millions game on Nov. 13. The couple purchased the $30 ticket at the Fischer Bay Exxon on Fischer Boulevard in Toms River.
On April 1, the couple won a $1 million top prize in the $1,000,000 Ultimate Spectacular scratch-off game. That $30 ticket was also bought in Ocean County. The odds to win the top prize in that game was one million to one.
The NJ Lottery estimated the combined odds of winning both top prizes is in about one in two trillion.
“I’ve always said that you only need one ticket to win big,” New Jersey Lottery Director James Carey said. “But I guess, in this case two tickets certainly didn’t hurt! This is just pure blind luck.”
The couple have a 5-year-old and an 11-month-old told lottery officials that make a competition out of lottery tickets.
“With our kids, we can’t really get out of the house,” the husband said. “So at the beginning of the month, we get some [scratch-off] tickets. When the kids go to bed, we scratch a few off. We like to make it a bit of a competition–who can win the most. It seems we at least always break even.”
The husband scratched a ticket and thought he might won a prize and handed it to his wife.
“I looked at it, held it to my chest and screamed,” she said of the $3 million win.
“Ten seconds later, she’s laughing. This is perfect,” the husband said before telling his wife: “Babe, we got luck on our side.”
After winning $1 million six month earlier, the wife told lottery officials that “maybe we celebrated a bit too much” as she patted her belly. The wife i five months pregnant.