"I play when I go grocery shopping, which ends up being about once a week," she said. "On the way, I always pick up a couple of scratch tickets. It felt weird paying $5 for a Lottery ticket, so I stuck to the lower-priced games. I did pretty well with them, too. I've won as much as $50."
She said she was browsing the scratch-off tickets when a stranger offered her his opinion.
"A man next to me suggested that I try a $10 ticket, that the prizes were much bigger than my $1 games. I figured, 'Why not?'" the woman recalled.
The man's advice turned out to be good, as the woman ended up winning the top prize from a $100,000 Crossword game.
The woman said she scratched the ticket off while still in the store.
"I always scratch my tickets at home -- always! But this time, I did it right there," she said.
The excited winner asked the clerk to double-check the ticket.
"He started yelling! There were a lot of people in there and in a minute or two, they were all gathering around to congratulate me," the winner said.
The woman said she plans to use some of her money to complete some unfinished home renovation projects.
