Lucky winner sails into $1,817,588 jackpot
By Kate Northrop
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A Virginia man set a record for the largest instant online lottery prize won in the United States at $1,817,588 — right from the comfort of his car.
Byron Bundoc didn't need to buy a lottery ticket at a brick-and-mortar retailer to win big. Instead, he won over $1,800,000 while sitting in his driveway.
Earlier this month, the Virginia Beach native had just returned from participating in a volunteer event when he arrived home. Wanting to unwind, he opened up the Virginia Lottery's mobile app on his phone.
He tapped into an online instant game called "Jackpot Spectacular," a multi-state game offered in both Virginia and Pennsylvania that offers a chance to win a progressive jackpot.
Jackpot Spectacular is "one of dozens of instant win games" offered by the Virginia Lottery's app and website, according to the Lottery. Bundoc says he had been keeping an eye on the steadily growing jackpot in that particular game.
As he sat in his car playing, the app suddenly alerted him to an instant win of $1,817,588. It is the largest prize ever won in the United States in an online instant game, the Lottery stated.
"It was surreal!" the U.S. Navy sailor recounted. "I called my brother and said, 'You're not going to believe this!"
Bundoc told the Lottery that he has no immediate plans for his winnings.
Jackpot Spectacular became available for online play in Virginia in July. Players may wager anywhere between $0.50 to $50 per play, and odds per game are based on the maximum possible tickets played. The odds per game of winning any prize are 1 in 3.99.
"How sweet it is!" :-)
~Jackie Gleason
Ship A Hoy Mate w/Good Luck !
Pro-Player Advocate
Eddessa_Knight with LIGHT
Every now and then the Virginia lottery gives you 10 free games of one of the various slot machine type games if you make a deposit to your account. I usually win at least a couple of dollars and one time won $40. I quit after the free games end.
My understanding (limited)is that you have to bet the maximum $50 to win the jp and some of these games have 3 levels of prizes based on the bet.
Regulations probably changed since I retired from the Army in '97. It was that if you hit it big in the lottery you could easily ETS (End Term of Service). Was stationed right behind the Pentagon, Ft Myer, VA 80-82. An Army Soldier in the Pentagon won $5 million and there was big hoopla because the military didn't want to release him. Sadly don't know the outcome of his predicament!
That's water under the bridge and so glad this US Sailor won a huge payday in his car!!
Congrats on such a nice win and thank you for you service. Enjoy!
Awesome! Congratulations. 🫡
Congratulations 🎉🎉
Wow Congrats!
I went to https://www.valottery.com/ and checked out the game and the current jackpot is about $755k
Those games look better than the online games here. Michigan awarded 1 $1,000,000 prize for the games here when they first started and since then they have not payed out more than $250k with the top prize on some of the games now being $500k and there is one prize higher but nobody is ever going to win that if you check out the odds for that.
https://www.michiganlottery.com/games?WHERE_TO_PLAY=ONLINE&SORT_BY=PRIZE_HIGH&GAME_TYPE=INSTANT