Springfield Woman Wins $200,000 in Lottery

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA -- Ayana Free doesn’t play lottery games often. She said she spends maybe $5 a year on tickets, she told the Virginia Lottery.

She spent $2 for a pair of Cash 5 tickets for the Sept. 19 day drawing, and they both matched all five numbers to win the $100,000 top prize. Her total winnings came to $200,000, the Virginia Lottery announced Thursday. In fact, because she plays so rarely, Free said she didn’t think to check the winning numbers for several weeks.

“I put the ticket in my wallet and didn’t think about it,” she said. When she finally did check the numbers and discovered she’d won, not once but twice, she was amazed. “It was shocking news!” she said.

She bought the winning tickets at Springfield Sunoco Mart, 6400 Backlick Road in Springfield. She selected the numbers on her ticket using important family dates. Those winning numbers were 4-7-9-24-30.
Cash 5 drawings are held daily at 1:59 p.m. and 11 p.m. The chances of winning the $100,000 top prize are 1 in 278,256.

The Virginia Lottery generates more than $1.6 million per day for Virginia’s K-12 public schools. Operating entirely on revenue from the sale of Lottery products, the Virginia Lottery generated a record $588 million for Virginia’s public schools in Fiscal Year 2016.

PHOTO: Ayana Free won $200,000 playing the Cash 5 game; photo courtesy of Virginia Lottery