Auburn residents react to man winning $20 million with scratcher at local store
AUBURN - It was an itch to get rich. One customer at a small Auburn store just scratched his way into multi-millionaire status.
We tried to find the lucky man today, but he was likely celebrating his big win -- the biggest of its kind in state history.
"This is the highest somebody has ever won in California from a scratchers ticket, a $20 million prize. We've never had that before," said California Lottery spokesperson Carolyn Becker.
Some customers are surprised that such a large jackpot was sold at their small neighborhood market in Auburn. The store owner didn't want to go on camera but says the winner, Chad Fry, is a regular customer and a nice guy.
"Chad was telling us it was just his routine trip to the store, I think he needed to buy a new pair of shorts, maybe get some groceries, ended up spending that money on a scratchers ticket," said Becker.
It was a $30 "set for life" ticket. After giving it a good scratch what he saw was $800,000 a year for life.
"Like most winners, he was kind of in shock and disbelief when he saw it," said Becker. "In this case, Chad chose to take the lump sum, he still walks away with $11.6 million."
And the lottery says he's already got plans for the cash.
"Chad tells us he wanted to go out and buy a new F250 pickup truck," said Becker.
This big win comes at a time of record-breaking lottery sales. In the last year, more than $8 billion in tickets have been sold, including more than $6 billion in scratchers and $900 million in Powerball and Mega Millions tickets. The lottery says two-thirds of all that revenue is paid out in prizes.
"it just goes to show that we do make millionaires almost every day, we're making millionaires by the dozens every year here in California," said Becker.