People who have found themselves in debt usually fantasize about a day when everything will be swept away.
And for one lucky man from Kentucky, that dream came true after he won a scratch-off lottery ticket in Louisville.
Charles Stallard bought a $5 scratch-off ticket in February at Price Less Foods in Louisville, which advertised $150,000 as the winning prize for the ticket.
Stallard first scratched off a 50x multiplier and then, to his amazement, a monetary amount of $3,000.
“I actually started crying. I couldn’t believe it,” she told the Kentucky Lottery. “For the first time in my life, I have no debt. I can pay off my house.”
Stallard collected the prize and took home $108,000, which he said he also plans to use to repair his boat, which has been broken down for more than a year.
“Once I pay for everything, I will go fishing for the rest of the year,” he said.
The Price Less Foods where he purchased the ticket won a $1,500 fee for selling the ticket.
Stallard’s wins follow another big win in Kentucky in December, when a group of 14 employees won $50,000 in scratch-off tickets their boss gave them at an office party.
“I’m going to use it for my mom’s medicine,” an employee named Winnie Beckman said at the time, explaining that her mother had recently been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. “This is going to help me a lot. And I’ll never forget it.”
The Kentucky Lottery has raised about $6.8 billion for causes in the state since 1989, and $4.8 billion of those proceeds have gone to education and scholarship programs, according to the lottery’s website.