When a Maryland woman had a serendipitous moment while sitting in traffic, she took it “as a sign of good fortune.” The woman was idling in traffic when a license plate caught her eye, Maryland Lottery officials said in a Jan. 23 news release. The license plate number included her late father’s birthday, lottery officials said.

A woman in southeastern North Carolina beat odds of 1 in 1,354,380 to be the first jackpot winner in the aptly named $1,000,000 Money Rush game. Barbara Jenkins, of Richlands, paid $10 for the scratch-off ticket, which means she got a $100,000 return for every buck she spent.

Suthard beat odds of 1 in 1,461,660 to win a jackpot. The scratch-off game relies on matching symbols rather than numbers, like an old fashioned slot machine. Initially, Suthard wasn’t exactly sure how to read the ticket.

A North Carolina man scored a $120,000 jackpot from a Cash 5 lottery drawing less than four years after winning an even larger sum.

Leon purchased the $10 ticket at PJ Express #1 in Blytheville. He bought the ticket after some encouragement from his wife who “had a good feeling” about their chances. To his shock, he won one of the game’s top prizes of $200,000. His wife said she was “stunned” and speechless.

A lottery player has a big reason to celebrate after scoring a life-changing win in North Carolina. The player bought a Carolina Cash 5 game ticket that matched all the numbers picked in the Jan. 21 drawing, making it worth $110,000, results show. The winning numbers: 3-7-8-11-21.

Manoj Chhetry, from Woodbridge, won a jackpot prize worth $4,303,499 in the Dec. 22 drawing for the Merry Money Mania game, the Virginia Lottery said in a Jan. 22 news release. Chhetry told lottery officials he thought it was a scam at first and had to call his wife to help him verify that he really had won. “I didn’t know what happened!” he said.