After Playing the Lottery for 11 Years, Woman Wins Multimillion-Dollar Prize and Plans to Share It with 4 Former Co-Workers

After 11 years of playing the lottery, an Indiana woman finally struck gold — and she’s splitting her multimillion-dollar prize with her former co-workers.

The winner, Milly, bought the winning Hoosier Lotto ticket for herself and four of her old co-workers, who call themselves “Milly’s Lottery Pool,” according to a news release from the Hoosier Lottery.

The group, all from the Columbus area, first met while working at a factory. Even after moving on from the job, they stayed close and kept playing the lottery together. For more than a decade, they entered every Hoosier Lotto drawing, as well as other Hoosier Lottery games, just for fun and excitement.

On Aug. 16, Milly picked up their latest ticket at Jack’s Place, a gas station in Columbus. She and her friends — Tony, Kendra, Jenny, and Roxanne — had no idea their years of playing were finally about to pay off.

Milly, who also runs a lottery-themed YouTube channel called Oldladyscratcher, posted the ticket in the group’s Facebook Messenger chat on Aug. 18, while scanning it with the Hoosier Lottery app. The prize was too big to claim at a store, and when she checked the numbers, she realized they had hit the jackpot. She messaged the group: “OMG! Everyone, we hit it. We won!”

The winning jackpot totaled $9.9 million.

When Milly sent the message, her friends were caught off guard. Tony’s phone was charging in the kitchen when it started buzzing with messages. “I was sitting down to dinner when I read the message that we won. At that point, I couldn’t eat dinner,” he told the Hoosier Lottery.

Kendra was leaving work when she got a call from the group chat. She thought it was a mistake at first, but when she saw the message, she said, “This is not real.”

Jenny had just read on Facebook that a jackpot-winning ticket was sold in Columbus. She thought, “I wish that was me,” before realizing it actually was. She kept the secret from her adult children for a week before finally gathering them at her home to share the news.

Roxanne was about to board a flight for an Alaskan cruise with her family when she found out. She thought about canceling her trip so the group could claim the prize sooner, but the others waited until she returned.

On Aug. 28, all five winners met at the Hoosier Lottery Prize Payment Office in downtown Indianapolis to collect their check. They chose the cash option of $4,682,171, which was split equally among them.

Each has different plans for the money — from buying a car or a new house to saving for the future. Still, they all agreed the jackpot would ease financial stress and “take weight off their shoulders.”

Sarah M. Taylor, executive director of the Hoosier Lottery, congratulated the group. “We love when Hoosiers play Indiana’s hometown favorite jackpot game, and we especially love it when Hoosiers win,” she said. “The fact that a group of longtime friends and co-workers from the Columbus area have won this jackpot together adds an extra layer of excitement.”

This year, the Hoosier Lotto has already had two other jackpots: one for $42.5 million on March 12 — the state’s biggest ever and the third-largest U.S. jackpot — and another for $1.2 million on March 22.