Woman wins Rs 1.4 crore from lottery in office gift exchange

Kentucky Lottery jackpot winner Lori Janes (Image: Kentucky Lottery)

A white elephant gift exchange in a Kentucky office proved exceptionally lucky for one employee who walked away with $175,000 (Rs 1.4 crore) she won from lottery tickets received in the exchange.

Lori Janes, an office manager at Harmon Dental Center in Louisville, first grabbed a $25 TJ Maxx gift card at the office party on Tuesday, according to Kentucky Lottery. When a colleague, following the game’s rule, decided to take the gift card from her, Janes got the opportunity to pick another gift from the communal pool and chose $25 worth of scratch-off tickets.

“Once it got to me, it was done and mine to keep. That’s when everyone was telling me to scratch them off,” she said, according to FOX 5 Atlanta.

Janes won $50 from her first scratch-off, much to the excitement of her co-workers. But the second scratch-off proved to be very lucky for Janes, who hit the jackpot of $175,000.

“It was a twenty-five-dollar gift exchange, and I won $175,000!” said the excited office manager. “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 shared the good news with her husband and children, who were initially sceptical. “We figured she didn’t look at it right, but then we heard people in the background celebrating, it became real,” said her husband.

The lottery winner plans to use her winnings to pay off her daughter’s student loans and their family vehicle.