Shepherdsville woman wins $80,000 on Kentucky Lottery scratch-off ticket

SHERPHERDSVILLE, Ky. – A Shepherdsville woman is celebrating her win of the top prize on a Kentucky Lottery scratch-off game.

Pamela Howard-Thorton, whose family and friends describe her as a lucky person, said she kept telling herself she needed to buy the lottery’s newest bingo game but said it took her a while to actually buy and play the ticket.

“I just had this premonition – go get that ticket,” Howard-Thorton joked when she came in recently to Kentucky Lottery Headquarters.

Howard-Thorton claimed her final prize – $57,600 after taxes.

She said after having a dream that she had won a large lottery jackpot, she started the next day on a journey to buy Flamingo Bingo.

“I went to the store, and I still didn’t buy the ticket that I was supposed to buy. I bought a different ticket and won $200,” she said.” So, I went home and kept telling myself, ‘Go get that ticket.’”

Howard-Thorton said she returned to the Speedway in Lebanon Junction that same day and cashed in her winning $200 Scratch-off ticket she had purchased earlier and bought four Flamingo Bingo tickets.

“They laid on the counter all day long. I had forgotten about them so at about 11:30 that night I decided to play them. The first three were not winners so I put them in the trash. Then I was like ‘where’s my fourth ticket?’ I looked in the trash and I was like, ‘oh, my gosh, I threw it away,’” she said.

After playing the fourth ticket, she wasn’t sure if the ticket was a winner or not. She asked her husband to check, and when he wasn’t sure, he told her to use the Kentucky Lottery Mobile app to scan it.

“I scanned it, of course, I started crying, and I started shouting and screaming,” she said. “I immediately called my daughter and my mom. My mom has always said she would give anything if she could just see me hit a big ticket before something happens to her. When I called her the night I won, she was so thankful and happy for me.”

Howard-Thorton plans to buy herself a new car, pay off some bills and give some of her winnings to her mom.

Speedway will receive $800 for selling the winning ticket.

There is one $80,000 top prize and eight $1,000 second-tier prizes remaining on Flamingo Bingo.