California man wins $500 in lottery scratch-offs – then went to work not realizing he won another million
It's not every day Vang Cha plays the lottery, but the last two times, he's won – and won big. The California resident recently won $1 million, but didn't realize until hours later when he got home from work.
Cha says he rarely plays the California Lottery Scratchers games. Then the Sacramento man decided to "give it a shot" with $30 California 200x Scratchers. He won $500, but decided to use that money to try and win some more.
"I decided to just go all-in and buy an entire book of the $10 games," he told the California Lottery, saying he didn't even realize he had a winner among them until later in the day – after a full day of work. "I went to work and scratched probably about 20 of them, went home and scratched the rest."
That's when he saw it, lucky No. 16 in the final row of the ticket with a big and bold $1 million prize written underneath.
"I was stunned! I scanned it in the Lottery app to make sure it was true, and it was," he said.
But the financial gains may not be over for Cha. He said that he's planning on investing his winnings and didn't detail any plans to spend it – other than on some more lottery scratch-offs.
Lottery officials said that Cha was one of several people to collect a millionaire status in recent days. Two people who played the Set for Life Scratchers are going to split a $20 million prize and several others took home $1 million to $2 million prizes for various scratch-off games.
The wins come as the Mega Millions jackpot rose yet again to an estimated $1.55 billion – the largest prize in the game's history. If confirmed, that prize would be the third-largest overall jackpot in U.S. lottery history. The next drawing for the game is Tuesday night.
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Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.