Business owner Carol Boyenschutz is usually too frugal to purchase expensive tickets, so when she won $40 and asked the clerk at the White Oak Deli & Convenience Store for one of the $30 tickets he was surprised because it was the most expensive ticket on the rack.
"You don't buy that ticket," the clerk said.
"Today, I buy that ticket," Boyenschutz replied.
Anxious to see if her gamble had paid off she scratched away the ticket's top layer and looked for a match. She found one—the number 16—and scooped a $10 million win.
Boyenschutz got onto the phone to her husband straight away and tried to share the good news, but he thought she was pulling his leg.
"Don't fool around with me like that," he said.
"No, I'm serious," Boyenschutz insisted. "Here, I'll let you talk to the man from the lottery."
After taxes, Boyenschutz will receive just under £300,000 a year for the next 25 years.
"I have always felt blessed, but this is a gift that will take us all the way to the end of our lives and beyond," she said.
There are four top prizes of $10 million still left to be won in the Ohio Lottery's 40th Anniversary Millions game. Twenty-nine $1 million prizes also remain and there are 10 levels of smaller prizes.
The Overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 2.66.