Lightning strikes twice for two Ohio Lottery players

Most lottery winners make the news for a record-breaking jackpot. But you don't need a nine-figure payout to have a great story. Ohio has winners every day, and two recent ones beat the odds in ways that go beyond just picking the right numbers.

The man who won twice in one month

Richard from Brunswick wasn't done after his first win.

On March 28, 2026, he bought an Ultimate $5,000,000 Scratch-Off at Brunswick Valero on Center Road and walked away with $5,000. Not bad. Then, less than a month later, on April 24, 2026, he picked up a Billion Scratch-Off at the same store and won $10,000.

Two tickets. Two wins. $15,000 total. He's putting it toward a new roof.

Is there a luckier regular customer in Brunswick? We haven't heard of one yet.

The Columbus truck driver who won because of a mistake

Sometimes a win finds you. That's what happened to a Columbus man who stopped for gas and asked the clerk for a Pick 5 ticket. The clerk printed it, then misplaced it before he could pay. She printed another. Then she found the first one.

He told her he would keep both.

That casual decision turned into a $50,834 payday. When the midday drawing came in 4-4-5-7-8, he had two matching straight bets — $25,000 each — plus an extra $417 per ticket for a 60-way boxed bet. The numbers came from his work ID at his brand-new job. The tickets were purchased at Airport Duchess #1250 on E 5th Avenue in Columbus.

He plans to invest the winnings in his family's landscaping business. Not bad for a clerical error.

More winner Wednesday highlights

Ohio had other lucky winners. A Euclid man who rarely plays found a discarded Pick 5 ticket on the ground and held onto the numbers: 7-3-4-2-1. On April 28, 2026, he played them again on a $1 straight bet at Eddy's Mini Mart on E. 105th Street in Cleveland. The odds of matching all five numbers in order are 1 in 100,000. He beat them and won $50,000.

About the Ohio Lottery

The Ohio Lottery has been creating winners since 1973. In 2025, players won $2.936 billion in prizes while Ohio students received $1.448 billion through the Lottery Profits Education Fund. Since 1974, the Lottery has contributed more than $34 billion to K-12 education in Ohio. Players can choose from scratch-offs, draw games, and multi-state games like Mega Millions and Powerball.

The Ohio Lottery also oversees 10,100+ Video Lottery Terminal games at Ohio's seven racinos and airs the longest-running lottery TV game show in the country: Cash Explosion, every Saturday night. One hundred percent of Lottery profits support K-12, vocational, and special education programs across the state.