'Beyond lucky': Woman wins same $1M lottery jackpot twice in 6 months

Jun 14, 2005, 9:03 am (12 comments)

Pennsylvania Lottery

A woman who won $1 million playing a Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off ticket earlier this year won another million on the same game Thursday.

Donna Goeppert, 55, of Bethlehem said it was "just unbelievable" after filing her claim Friday at lottery headquarters. "What are the odds of that?" she asked.

The odds of winning just once are 1.44 million-to-1, according to the lottery. Lehigh University engineering professor Bob Storer placed the odds of winning twice after buying 100 tickets at 419 million-to-1.

Goeppert's winning tickets both came in the lottery's $1 Million Blockbuster game. A lottery spokeswoman confirmed that a claim was filed but has not yet been validated and said it typically takes four to six weeks before a check is issued.

Goeppert purchased the most recent winning ticket from Lump's Deli in Bethlehem for $20.

Her win in January allowed her to pay off her mortgage and her children's mortgages, buy a new Cadillac and put away money for her grandchildren's education.

Lottery officials said other winners have experienced lucky streaks. A Carbon County man won four times, collecting over $2.5 million in the late 1980s and '90s; and a husband and wife separately won replica Pocono pace cars in the Pocono Race for the Riches game in 2000.

AP

Comments

Litebets27's avatarLitebets27

WTG "women in Pennsylvania". I only hope that I could, one day soon get into a winning streak such as that one. lol

litebets

Deadsantaclaus

Wow if she can pull off 419Million to 1 odds I feel even better about mega-millions new matrix then I did previous to this piece of info!

four4me

I don't see anything special about this. Looks like she hit the first scratcher then took the money and went around to all the other stores and bought the rest of the games tickets and won twice. I might do something like that myself if i won a top tier prize of 500,000 or more. It wasn't so long ago that a guy here in Md did the same thing. He bought a scratcher and won 500,000 grand then went around to all the stores in his zip code area and bought all the books of the same game and won the second teir prize. The second ticket he won on store was less than 1 mile from the other store he bought the first winner from.

These people must have done their homework and checked to see if any top tier prizes were remaining. Most state lottery websites have a listing of all the scratchers with prizes remaining. When i'm in the scratcer buying mode i check the website for all remaining tickets not redeemed yet for all the top tier tickets over 500,000 grand or more. Then i visit the places which have a high sales record for selling winning scratchers. One place i visits has sold 3 or more top tier prizes in the last two years. So i just might get lucky and buy one of the winners there.

RJOh's avatarRJOh

That woman was a lucky gambler.  I'll can't see myself ever being that lucky because I can't see paying $20 for one scratch-off ticket.  As they say "You can't win if you don't play", but good luck to those who do.

RJOh

four4me

That woman was a lucky gambler.  I'll can't see myself ever being that lucky because I can't see paying $20 for one scratch-off ticket.  As they say "You can't win if you don't play", but good luck to those who do.

RJOh

Rjoh 1/2 the battle is having a positive attitude about winning. Quote (Can't see myself ever being that lucky.) sounds like you've convinced yourself that you ain't going to win. Instead of feeling like that try and say today is my day. I'm going to win get the positive attitude juices flowing. When i hit my first big win i knew i was going to win i had every vision of winning and a very positive feeling about winning.  

Todd's avatarTodd

I'm not so sure, four4me.  If it were so easy to do, then all people could use their retirement money to go buy all the scratch tickets of a particular type, and they would keep multiplying their money.  I understand your logic, but I think that there are many more tickets than her money could buy, and I think it is very special.

Todd's avatarTodd

Plus, the story mentions that she put almost all of her money to good use, so she did not go buy a lot of tickets.

four4me

Ah i don't know but my point is. If you win a jackpot prize your emotional feelings must go through the roof. you feel extremly lucky and having all that money and the winning feeling to boot. Fuels a overall well being. Feeling luck is half the battle. So while she might not have bought every store in the states lottery tickets. She aparently did some buying of tickets or she wouldn't have won the second time around. My other point is homework knowing which places have the higest turnover of winning scratchers tickets. And which games still have remaining prizes. Gives one the edge so to speak because they have a forhand knowledge. They just aren't going to places and buying tickets on a whim.

The guy in maryland didn't buy 20,000 worth of tickets either but someware in the neighborhood of 500 bucks after his big scratch win. So if you win a million on a scratcher and there are still remaining top tier prizes the posibility exisst for you to win again if you go around to the popular winning store locations and buy some more of the same or similar tickets. While you still are in the lucky streak mode.

qutgnt

A good point is made, people should only play the games where the big prizes still remain or better yet the games where there are more top tier prizes in relationship to smaller tier prizes left (based on percentage of course) . I hate the fact that the Illinois Lottery only updates this list once a week. In this age of computers it should be done more than that. I was on the prowl trying to find some Merry Millionaire tickets as there was still a winner out there after 97% sold. The only place in my zip code to have it sold out four days before to a woman who bought 5 books of 10 dollar tickets or 3000 worth.  If that place did sell the winner I will be pissed!  It wasnt a bad play on her part though because she should expect at least 1500 back in winning tickets, and I figured she had a 300 out of 90000 chance to win a million.  There it isnt a bad move to buy up all those tickets , as I would have!

RJOh's avatarRJOh

That woman was a lucky gambler.  I'll can't see myself ever being that lucky because I can't see paying $20 for one scratch-off ticket.  As they say "You can't win if you don't play", but good luck to those who do.

RJOh

Rjoh 1/2 the battle is having a positive attitude about winning. Quote (Can't see myself ever being that lucky.) sounds like you've convinced yourself that you ain't going to win. Instead of feeling like that try and say today is my day. I'm going to win get the positive attitude juices flowing. When i hit my first big win i knew i was going to win i had every vision of winning and a very positive feeling about winning.  

Four4me,

I have a positive attitude when I play my kind of games, but a $20 scratch-off ticket is not the kind of game I would play. 

RJOh 

CASH Only

Since Lump's Deli was involved, the $1 million better be LUMP SUM LOL

LOTTOMIKE's avatarLOTTOMIKE

Wow if she can pull off 419Million to 1 odds I feel even better about mega-millions new matrix then I did previous to this piece of info!

I Agree!

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