Office birthday gift earns Kansas woman $20,000 lottery prize

Sept. 1 (UPI) -- A Kansas woman won a $20,000 lottery prize from a ticket she received for free as a birthday gift from her office.

Marsha Silver, of McPherson, told Kansas Lottery officials she received a pair of $2 Double Bonus Crossword scratch-off tickets in a birthday card from coworkers at her realty office.

"Jeannie, my coworker, and I both had birthdays last week and got two Crossword tickets in our cards," Silver shared. "She had scratched hers and asked me if I won anything and that's when I showed her the ticket and told her I had to go to Topeka!"

Silver said she thought at the time that she had won $2,000, but after showing the ticket to her husband, he pointed out that she had missed seeing a letter.

"He told me I missed an 'L,' which brought me up to 10 words for the $20,000! I couldn't believe it; I was just happy with what I thought was $2,000," she said.

Silver said she plans to use some of her winnings to throw an office party for her coworkers and will spend the rest on her family.