3 Year Long Father-Daughter Rivalry Ends With Huge Idaho Lottery Surprise
We all have that one relative, right? The one that will get super competitive over the weirdest things.
Fantasy football, the office ugly sweater competition, who can eat the spiciest food…you get the idea. We can’t say this with absolute certainty, but after reading his story on the Idaho Lottery’s Facebook page, Dwayne may just be “that guy” in the Skidmore family.
For the past three years, he’s had a playful rivalry with his daughter, Brittany. According to the Idaho Lottery, Brittany previously won $250,000 on one of their scratch tickets. Like many of us, Dwayne would buy a scratch ticket every now and then not expecting to win. In fact, he truly believed that no one ever won scratch ticket top prizes until his daughter became one of those winners. After Brittany’s big win, he was determined to win more than she did.
Based on what he told lottery officials, it seems like the probability of that happening seemed low because Dwayne gravitated toward the $5 games. Looking through the lottery’s website, it appears that the top prize on most $5 games is $50,000. But during one visit to an Oasis Stop N’ Go in the Jerome area, he gravitated toward the $30 “The Motherload” ticket. The dragon and gold coin-clad ticket had a top prize of $300,000.
Time is money, so Dwayne decided to skip actually playing the game and immediately scratched off the barcode for the cashier to scan, hoping he’d at least win enough back to justify the cost of the ticket and maybe a little more. Both of them were stunned when the lotto terminal did its big “WOOH!” fanfare. The clerk told him that meant that he’d probably won at least $1,000.
$1,000 wasn’t more than Brittany won, but it’s still pretty significant. He decided to scratch actually play the ticket after leaving the store and discovered that he didn’t win $1,000. He actually had one of the tickets for the top prize of $300,000! Not only did the win bring the rivalry with his daughter to a close, but it was also another event in a string of fortunate events in his life.
While picking up his check, he revealed that about a month ago, a family member opened their doors to Dwayne and his wife while they were homeless. That act of kindness allowed the couple to save up enough money to buy their own vehicle, which they drove to Boise to claim their prize. The money will certainly be helpful as the couple gets back on their feet, but Dwayne told lottery officials, he’s going to use a large part of it to help friends and family members who could use some help.
By the way, if you’re hoping to have similar luck, the Idaho Lottery’s website shows that there is still ONE remaining $300,000 ticket remaining for “The Motherload” game. There About 54% of the tickets for the game have sold so far. There are two $10,000 tickets for the game still floating around the Gem State.