Connecticut Lottery player wins two big scratch-off prizes in one week

Jan. 8 (UPI) -- A Connecticut Lottery player beat odds of less than one in one trillion to win two big prizes from scratch-off lottery tickets purchased from the same store within one week.

The Connecticut Lottery said the Salem resident won $200,000 from a Cash Royale scratch-off ticket purchased from the Citgo in Colchester on Dec. 31.

The player returned to the same store on Jan. 3 and bought a $1,000,000 Jumbo Cash ticket that earned a prize of $750,000.

Iddo Ben-Ari, a mathematics professor at the University of Connecticut, said the player beat odds of more then one in one trillion.

"The chance of this happening to me or to you is completely unlikely but the chance of this happening to someone, anyone throughout history, is actually pretty high," Ben-Ari told CT Insider. "That's exactly what happened here, it's a rare thing, but it will keep happening again and again."