TOMS RIVER — You know the slogans “Hey, you never know” and “you have to be in it to win it…
A New Jersey couple is defying the odds after winning two major lottery prizes in just six months, a streak so rare that officials estimate the combined chances at roughly one in two trillion.
The unidentified Ocean County couple, who have two children and another on the way, recently claimed a $3 million top prize from the Jackpot Millions Scratch-Off ticket. The winning ticket was purchased at the Fischer Bay Exxon on Fischer Boulevard in Toms River. Only three top prizes exist in the $30 game, and the odds of winning one are about one in 2 million.
Remarkably, this isn’t their first brush with extraordinary luck. On April 1, the couple won a $1 million prize from the $1,000,000 Ultimate Spectacular Scratch-Off, also bought in Ocean County. The top-prize odds in that game are more than one in 1 million.
“For context, you’re more than a million times likelier to be struck by a meteor than to experience this kind of double win,” the New Jersey Lottery noted.
Lottery Director James Carey called the couple’s streak “pure blind luck.”
“I’ve always said you only need one ticket to win big,” Carey said. “But in this case, two tickets didn’t hurt.”
The couple chose to remain anonymous, as allowed under state law, but shared how playing Scratch-Offs has become a simple form of entertainment for them. With a 5-year-old and an 11-month-old at home, they say nights out are rare.
“At the beginning of the month, we buy a few tickets,” the husband said. “After the kids go to bed, we scratch them. It’s a little competition — who can win the most. We usually break even.”
Their most recent game night took a dramatic turn when the husband handed his partially scratched ticket to his wife.
“I looked at it, held it to my chest and screamed,” she recalled.
“Ten seconds later she’s laughing,” her husband added. “I told her, ‘Babe, we’ve got luck on our side.’”
After their first million-dollar win, they celebrated — maybe a bit too enthusiastically, the wife joked while patting her belly. She is now five months pregnant with their third child.
The couple said the two life-changing prizes will help them build a more secure future as their family grows.
Now, after reading this, you’ll probably be running out to by a ticket, right?
