Vienna Man Wins $5 Million Lottery Prize

PHOTO: Vienna resident Robert Young won $5 million playing the Virginia Lottery. Photo courtesy of Virginia Lottery.

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VIENNA, VA -- A Vienna man has won $5 million playing the Virginia Lottery, the lottery agency announced this week.

Robert Young spent $5 on a Virginia Lottery ticket and won $20. Then he used his $20 winnings to buy a 50X the Money ticket, and that ticket won $5 million.

“I was in shock,” he said in the announcement. “I parlayed the $5 win into a $5 million win.”

On Monday, Young received his first check from the Virginia Lottery. The prize is $5 million in annual payments over 30 years or approximately $166,000 per year before taxes. He chose the annual payments over a lesser one-time cash option, the lottery office said.

He bought his winning ticket at the Giant store located at 5740 Union Mill Road in Clifton.

“I wasn’t sure if it was a winning ticket, so I showed the clerk,” Young recalled. “She said, ‘Oh yes, this is a winner.’ My head was spinning a little bit at this point.”

This is the fourth and final top prize claimed in 50X the Money (game #1469), which means the game is now closed. It’s the Virginia Lottery’s policy to close Scratcher games when the final top prize is claimed. Young beat odds of 1 in 2,448,000 to win the top prize, the lottery office said.

However, because the game is so popular, the Virginia Lottery has another 50X the Money Scratcher (game #1612), which currently has two $5 million prizes available.

Interestingly, now that he’s won the big prize, Young says he probably won’t play anymore.

“Mission accomplished,” he said.

The Virginia Lottery generates more than $1.4 million per day for Virginia’s K-12 public schools. Operating entirely on revenue from the sale of Lottery products, the Virginia Lottery generated nearly $534 million for Virginia’s public schools in Fiscal Year 2015.