Community Corner

Win the lottery twice? Yes, please!

While others are winning multiple times, the Midtown Patch editor reflects on the time when he almost didn't cash in his big-money Georgia Lottery ticket.

There was another story this week about a two-time Georgia Lottery winner cashing in as a CNN producer claimed a $1 million prize after winning $100,000 back in November.

That came after last week’s announcement that Erik Holmes had won $500,000 from a scratch-off game less than a year after he had won $104,000 playing the lottery. The 44-year Home Depot manager recently after work stopped by the Ponce Food Mart at 689 Boulevard and purchased a scratch-off game called $7 Million Jackpot.

And it gets me to think that I’d like to win the lottery again. Not that I’m expecting to bank the $61 million Mega Millions jackpot Friday night, but clearly I’m not the only one hoping for such good fortune. Lottery officials said there were $101.2 million in sales for the week ending Feb. 11, making it the best sales week ever for the Georgia Lottery. It bested the previous mark set in 2007 by more than $5 million.

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What would you do if you won tonight’s Mega Millions?

I won the Fantasy 5 once. I bought the ticket at an East Cobb Chevron station on Sept. 30, 1998. I pinned it to a bulletin board and forgot about it.

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I was working for the now defunct Atlanta Sports Weekly at the time. I remember going down to Miami in late January for Super Bowl XXXIII. You know, the only one the Falcons have ever played in. They were filming "Any Given Sunday" in South Florida at the time and I met Cameron Diaz. She said I was funny.

KISS performed before the game and Cher sang the National Anthem. But the Birds’ Eugene Robinson pulled his stunt and the Falcons blew it against the Broncos. I got back to Atlanta the next day sunburned, hungover and gimping around on a sprained ankle.

That’s when the publishers told me that there were no more funds and that they had to let me go. Bummed out, I went home and made a vodka drink. The next day, with nothing to do, I pulled that lottery ticket off the board. At the time, you couldn’t check numbers online. So I called the number and then read along as the computer-generated voice called out my five digits.

They give you 180 days to cash in those winning tickets before they go void. When I made the call, I was on day No. 151. The winning ticket was worth around $64,000 and after taxes, I took home about 43K. Good times.

For $1, players can try for tonight's jackpot. Proceeds from the lottery benefit education in Georgia. Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned $12.9 billion to the state for programs including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s Pre-K Program. 

The next drawing is scheduled for tonight at 11 p.m.

What would you do if you won tonight's jackpot?


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