Lottery player wins big in Virginia drawing — twice. ‘No way you’ve won it again’

Nathan Dean won big in 2012 when he entered Virginia’s annual New Year’s Millionaire Raffle.

Twelve years later, he did it again.

Dean won a $100,000 second-tier prize in the state’s 2024 raffle game, the Virginia Lottery announced Jan. 8.

When he saw the prize had quadrupled from $25,000 to $100,000 since the last time he won it, he thought, “That would be nice,” he told lottery officials.

The Henrico County man landed one of seven second-tier prizes using a ticket purchased in Richmond. Five people hit the game’s jackpot of $1 million in the Jan. 1 drawing, and 1,000 tickets won $500.

When Dean told his wife, she didn’t believe him, he said.

“It took a bit to convince my wife I wasn’t messing with her,” he told lottery officials. “She said, ‘There’s no way you’ve won it again!’”

Dean, an environmental chemist, was in his car at a stop sign in 2012 when he checked the winning numbers from that year’s drawing and learned he had won $25,000.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told lottery officials at the time.

Dean told officials he doesn’t have plans for his new winnings right away.

The other tickets that won $100,000 were bought in Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Poquoson, Yorktown, Lynchburg and Manassas, McClatchy News previously reported.

“All Virginia Lottery profits go to K-12 education in Virginia,” according to the Virginia Lottery. “In Fiscal Year 2023, the Lottery raised more than $867 million for K-12 education, making up approximately 10 percent of Virginia’s total K-12 school budget.”