LINCOLN PARK BOROUGH, NJ (Morris County) – Who hasn’t had a bad day? When everything seems to go wrong and even the smallest problems feel enormous, you might just feel like you deserve something good to happen to you.
Maybe a vending machine dispenses an extra bag of chips with your purchase, or a driver lets you merge onto the Parkway during rush hour. It doesn’t take much to turn things around—anything would do, really.
How about $100? Most of us would gladly accept that. But what about $1 million?
A Morris County player was having “one of those days” on Wednesday, Dec. 11. At the end of the day, the player decided to stop by Wolfson’s Market in Lincoln Park to pick up a $20 100X Cash Blitz Scratch-Off ticket. That decision paid off—he won the second of three $1 million prizes, leaving only one top prize remaining.
“Man, I was having a bad day,” the winner shared on Thursday while visiting Lottery headquarters with a friend to claim the prize. “I was running around town and just stopped at Wolfson’s. I play there once in a blue moon. I usually go across the street. I figured I deserved something—maybe $100.”
The player forgot one essential item that would have made checking the Scratch-Off ticket easier—his reading glasses.
“I can’t tell the difference between 4s and 9s without my glasses. I had to look at the card like 10 times,” the player laughed. “I thought I must be misreading something.”
Fortunately, the player’s friend came to the rescue.
“He’s calling me over, screaming, saying, ‘Tell me I won!’ Boy, that was a lot of zeroes!”
The player’s expectations were modest: “I was just hoping for like $500 to be able to buy some Christmas presents for people.”
The next day, the player needed to borrow glasses again to fill out the state forms required to claim the prize.
The $1 million top prize is the game’s annuity value, but the player chose the cash option of $602,300. “Hey, at least I can say I was a millionaire for a day,” the player quipped.
The win couldn’t have come at a better time for the player, who is recovering from shoulder surgery and currently on disability. The prize will help bridge the gap until the player becomes eligible for retirement in a few months. The player also cares for their elderly mother, who is in her 90s.
“This couldn’t have come at a better time,” the player’s friend said.
