Couple wins big lottery prize after years of playing game. ‘It finally happened!’
For 16 years, an unwavering Connecticut couple played the same lottery game with the same strategy, officials said.
Then, the couple finally won big — matching all five numbers in the June 21 drawing of Lucky for Life, the Connecticut Lottery said in a June 23 news release.
The lucky duo won $25,000 a year for life in the game, which they’ve been faithfully playing since its debut in March 2009, according to the lottery.
“I couldn’t believe it,” the winners told lottery officials. “It finally happened!”
Over the years the pair’s strategy has not changed: using their birthdays, their kids’ birthdays or other loved ones’ birthdays as their numbers, the lottery said.
The winning numbers for the June 21 drawing were 8, 10, 22, 26, and 28, according to lottery officials.
The couple took a lump-sum payout of $390,000, which they plan to use to help their kids with wedding plans and to take a vacation, lottery officials said.
They bought their ticket for $2 at a gas station in Waterbury, about a 30-mile drive southwest from Hartford, the lottery said.
The odds of matching all five numbers in the game are 1 in 1,813,028. The odds of matching five numbers and the lucky ball to win the top prize of $365,000 a year for life are 1 in 30,821,472.
Drawings for the game happen every night, lottery officials said.
This story was originally published June 25, 2025 at 12:51 PM with the headline "Couple wins big lottery prize after years of playing game. ‘It finally happened!’."
