$200K Lottery Scratch Off Sold in Pendleton

An Upstate man’s bathroom break earned him a $200,000 lottery win.

He stopped at the Xpress Fuel on Hwy. 76 in Pendleton to use the bathroom and decided to grab a soda and a few lottery tickets.

“It was surreal,” he said of his good luck. “I usually stop at the store across the street, but it was busy after a Clemson game.”

Sitting in the car with his wife, he says they scratched the tickets and won $20. He went back inside the store to get his $20 and bought a few more tickets to scratch.

“My heart dropped,” he said when a ticket he paid $5 for won him $200,000. “I jumped out of the car and threw the ticket on the store counter and asked them to scan it to be sure.”

He admits he didn’t sleep that night, and when he arrived at the Lottery’s Claims Center in Columbia his hands were shanking as he handed over the winning ticket for payment.

The couple has bought a new car and are planning to remodel their house with the prize money.

“On a whim I bought that ticket,” he said. “Now we’re getting to do some stuff we’ve always wanted to do.”

The Pendleton player claimed the last top prize of $200,000 remaining in the ($5) Triple Red 777s game at odds of 1 in 750,000.

For selling the claimed ticket, CDTS LLC, known to locals at Xpress Fuel, in Pendleton received a commission of $2,000.