A Pharmacy technician from West Plains, Missouri, picked up a sizeable cash prize when she purchased a Missouri Lottery scratch-off ticket to help alleviate her Friday night boredom. It certainly proved an effective remedy because when she's finished scratching away the ticket's top coating she discovered she's won $50,000.
Kayla Helton's boredom-busting prize came courtesy of the lottery's "5X Crossword" game, but the lucky winner admits she doesn't play that particular game very often.
"I don’t usually scratch those, but when I’m bored, I do, because they take up some time," Kayla told lottery officials on September 5, 2014.
Winning so much money was such a surprise for her the flabbergasted 25-year-old had to pop around to her father's house and ask him to double check the ticket. Her father went ahead and checked it, but was so shocked at what he saw he suggested they take it to a lottery retailer and check it yet again.
Once the doubting duo had finally accepted it was a winning ticket Kayla got on the phone and shared the good news with her husband, Steve, who had some doubts of his own.
"I called my husband and told him, and he didn't believe me," Kayla recalled.
When lottery officials asked her if she'd made any plans for the money Kayla said she was going to pay off their house and become debt-free.
"If I have some left over . . . I don't know. . . Maybe go on a vacation somewhere—somewhere tropical," she said.
