Talk about beating the odds.
A day after her daughter completed her cancer treatment, where she spent all her savings, a Florida woman, Geraldine Gimblet, won a $2 million lottery jackpot.
Gimblet, who is from Lakeland, had stopped at a gas station hoping to buy one of the “$2,000,000 BONUS CASHWORD Scratch-Off game” lottery tickets, but the clerk said that they were all out.
Instead of taking his losses, Gimblet asked the worker to check again.
“At first the gas station clerk thought there were no tickets left, but I asked him to check it out because I like crossword puzzles the best,” Gimblet said according to the press release. of the lottery. “He found the last one!”
In CASHWORD, players are given 20 letters and three separate games, where they must match three or more words in each game with their letters and win the indicated cash prize, with the option of doubling it with a “MONEYBAG” symbol.
After winning the game’s top prize, Gimblet opted to receive a one-time lump sum payment of $1,645,000, which had a 1 in 3.9 million chance of being cashed, according to the lottery’s website.
But her own lottery win wasn’t the only good news for the family that week, as her daughter had completed her final treatment for breast cancer.
Gimblet’s daughter revealed that her mother spent all her savings so she could pay for her treatment and care.
“The day before my mum bought this ticket, I rang the bell and was discharged from the hospital after completing my last treatment for breast cancer,” Gimblet’s daughter told the lottery. “My mother had taken out her savings to take care of me when I was sick. I am so happy for her!
Gimblet, her daughter and granddaughter all made the 260-mile trip to Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee, where Reggie Dixon, the lottery’s chief of staff, joined them for payment .
Pipkin Road Beverage Castle, the Lakeland retailer that sold the scratch off giveaway, will receive a $2,000 bonus commission for the winner’s sale.
In early March, a Virginia man got lucky twice by buying two Powerball tickets, winning a total of $150,000 on both tickets.
