Man thinks he won $100,000 on lottery scratcher. ‘That’s a comma,’ his wife says

When Thomas Shellabarger scratched off a $10 Multiplier Craze game ticket purchased at the Orange County Fair, he told his wife they had won big, California Lottery officials said.

“At first, I thought I’d won a hundred thousand, and I told my wife that we were finally out of debt,” he told lottery officials. “She said, ‘Let me see that. That’s a comma right there!’ My knees buckled, and I had to sit down.”

The winning ticket was worth $1 million, not $100,000, lottery officials said in a Nov. 25 news release.

Shellabarger, who hit the jackpot in August after buying a ticket from a California Lottery Live booth at the fair, recently claimed his prize after his claim was processed, officials say.

He told lottery officials that he buys scratchers each year at the fair when he visits with his family.

“Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose,” Shellabarger said. “I think the most I’d won before was a hundred bucks, but his time we won pretty good.”

But it almost didn’t happen. His family had originally planned to go to the fair a day earlier, but the event was sold out, lottery officials said. Otherwise the winning ticket would probably have gone to someone else.

“I’ve never thought to myself, ‘I’m going to win the lottery, I’m going to be rich.’ It’s always been I’ll put my dollars in and hope for the best. Looking back now, sometimes I’ll just chuckle. I honestly can’t believe I won the lottery,” Shellabarger said.

This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Man thinks he won $100,000 on lottery scratcher. ‘That’s a comma,’ his wife says."