A pair of brothers from Virginia are now the recipients of a big lottery jackpot prize!
Brothers Tim and Steve Cornwell of Tazewell County split $230,000 after Tim won the Cash 5 with EZ Match game last year, officials with the Virginia Lottery announced.
According to a news release from the lottery organization, Tim bought the winning ticket at Virginia Hillbilly Market in Cedar Bluff — and he picked his numbers based on “birthdays and important family dates.”
“I couldn’t wait for my brother to wake up so I could tell him!” Tim told lottery officials.
As for diving the winnings evenly, well, that’s something the brothers worked out long ago.
“We always say that if one of us wins, we’ll split it,” Tim said.
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According to lottery officials. Cash 5 with EZ Match game is a rolling jackpot game and the odds of matching all five numbers to win are 1 in 749,398.
The brothers are some of the latest Virginians to hit the jackpot, but in October, Jennifer Minton of Gloucester won twice in a week. She first played the Virginia Lottery’s Safari Quest online game and won $50,000. Then, she played the same game and won another prize of $912,936.
According to the lottery organization, Minton was around a campfire playing the game on her mobile device when she noticed the jackpot reset. She remembered thinking at the moment, “Dang, somebody just hit. They are so lucky!”
Then Minton realized that the jackpot of $912,936 was visible on her screen. “I’m in shock!” Minton said in a news release. “I’m in disbelief!”
The organization also said that all lottery profits go to finance K-12 education in the state, noting that Tazewell County, where Tim Cornwell’s winning ticket was purchased, got over $5 million for education in the last fiscal year.
