Vienna Woman Wins $150,000 With Lottery 'Scratch-Off' Ticket

VIENNA, VA -- Vienna resident Selamawit Beyne has won $150,000 playing the Virginia Lottery after buying a "scratch-off" ticket at Vienna Drug Center, 140 Maple Ave. West, the Virginia Lottery announced Wednesday.

With a little time on her hands, the Vienna woman decided to buy a Cash Multiplier ticket from the Virginia Lottery.

“I don’t usually play,” the Virginia Lottery reported her as saying. “I thought, ‘Why not? Let’s try it.’” So she scratched the ticket and thought she’d won $150. “Oh, that’s nice," she said she thought to herself.

But Beyne was wrong. She hadn’t won $150. She’d actually won $150,000. “I didn’t believe it,” she said as she claimed her prize. “I still don’t believe it.”

She is the first top prize winner in Cash Multiplier, the Lottery noted, which means two $150,000 winning tickets are unclaimed in the game. The odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 1,060,800. The odds of winning any prize in Cash Multiplier are 1 in 4.29.

Beyne, who works as a pharmacy technician, said she has no immediate plans for her winnings.

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.

PHOTO of Selamawit Beyne courtesy of Virginia Lottery