Newport News man wins $227,000 in Virginia Lottery
$5,000 Welcome Bonus
Charles Smith bought a ticket online for the July 17 drawing, which had 4-6-8-12-15 as the winning numbers.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — As a Newport News man's wife was leaving for an out-of-state trip, he jokingly told her he'd call when he won the lottery.
Sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
Charles Smith won $227,000 in the Virginia Lottery’s Cash 5 with EZ Match game.
Smith bought a ticket online for the July 17 drawing, which had 4-6-8-12-15 as the winning numbers. He picked those numbers using family birthdays.
The Cash 5 with EZ Match game uses a rolling jackpot, which starts with a $100,000 minimum. If nobody matches all five winning numbers, the jackpot goes up for the next drawing.
The odds of matching all five numbers are one in 749,398, according to the Virginia Lottery.
After Smith won, he called his wife to tell her.
“Of course, she thought I was joking,” Smith told the Virginia Lottery.
Smith said he doesn't have immediate plans for spending the money except to pay bills. Also, he told lottery officials that his wife still thinks he's joking.
The Virginia Lottery said it generates over $2 million a day for K-12 public schools across the state, with over $779 million raised in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022.
