LAKE CITY, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Talk about a blowout! <\/p>\n
The Florida Lottery announced on Monday that Joseph Demaio, a 50-year-old Lake City resident, just turned a routine trip to the supermarket into a half-a-million-dollar payday thanks to the Florida Lottery\u2019s $500,000 CASH BLOWOUT Scratch-Off game.<\/p>\n
Demaio claimed his jaw-dropping prize at Lottery Headquarters in Tallahassee on September 17, opting for the full lump-sum payout of $500,000. His lucky ticket was purchased at Tower Road Supermarket, located at 7114 W. University Avenue in Gainesville \u2014 proving that sometimes, your neighborhood store really is the jackpot hotspot.<\/p>\n
Lottery officials said that the $500,000 CASH BLOWOUT game, which costs $50 to play, has 100 top prizes of $500,000 and over $1.01 billion in total cash prizes. The odds? A solid 1-in-4.08 \u2014 not bad for a shot at life-changing money!<\/p>\n
See also: Florida law originally targeting Trump protesters now used against UF football fans<\/a><\/p>\n Scratch-Off games like this one are more than just fun \u2014 they\u2019re a major part of the Florida Lottery\u2019s success story. In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, these games made up 74% of ticket sales, helping fund education across the state, according to the news release. Since their debut, Scratch-Offs have awarded over $66.9 billion in prizes, created 2,350 millionaires, and contributed more than $20.09 billion to Florida\u2019s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund.<\/p>\n So next time you\u2019re grabbing groceries, maybe toss a Scratch-Off into your cart \u2014 you could be the next Joseph Demaio!<\/p>\n Find more ways to stay up to date with your latest local news. Sign up for our newsletter<\/a> to get the day’s top headlines delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our YouTube channel<\/a> for the biggest stories and can’t miss video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAKE CITY, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Talk about a blowout! The Florida Lottery announced on Monday that Joseph Demaio,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2491,2492,2493,2497,28,30,759,29,2496,762,2495,2494],"class_list":["post-1882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-2491","tag-2492","tag-cash-blowout","tag-education-funding","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-lottery","tag-florida-news","tag-gainesville","tag-joseph-demaio","tag-lottery-win","tag-scratch-off-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}