Louisville woman wins $175,000 scratch-off prize at company holiday party

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Louisville woman has won $175,000 after participating in a white elephant gift exchange during an office holiday party.

Lori Janes, who works for Harmon Dental Center as the office manager and treatment coordinator, won the prize off a Kentucky Lottery Hit the Jackpot ticket.

Janes initially had a $25 TJ Maxx gift card and was disappointed when one of her coworkers “stole” it, according to Kentucky Lottery. As a result of the gift being taken, she had to choose another one. Janes then took $25 in scratch-off tickets from someone else.

Since the tickets had already been “stolen”, the tickets were no longer available for anyone else to steal.

With everyone sitting around the room, she began to scratch the tickets off. She won $50 on the first ticket and proceeded to scratch-off the second one.

As Lori scratched off the $10 Hit The Jackpot ticket, she continued to reveal a win on all 15 spots on her ticket, winning the game’s $175,000 top prize.

“Everyone was going insane. People were getting their calculators out and double checking. A couple of people even scanned the ticket on the lottery’s app, just to make sure,” Janes said.

Janes called her husband and kids to share the news, but they had a hard time believing her at first.

“We figured she didn’t look at it right, but then we heard people in the background celebrating, it became real,” her husband told lottery officials.

Janes, along with her husband and two children, showed up at lottery headquarters just hours later, where Lori received a check for $124,250, after taxes.

She told lottery officials they will pay off her daughter’s student loans and their cars.

Sunrise Market in Fisherville, where the winning Scratch-off tickets were sold, will receive a $1,750 bonus.