Woman checks lottery ticket ‘like 10 times’ while pumping gas. It left her crying

A woman discovered a forgotten lottery ticket as she pumped gas, and its jackpot prize triggered an emotional reaction.

Forgetting about lottery tickets is a common occurrence for Wendy Donaldson, who told Iowa Lottery officials she often buys scratch-off tickets and doesn’t play them until later.

When she stopped for gas after work recently, she found a PAC-MAN scratcher that had yet to be played.

“I was sitting at the gas pump, and then I checked it, and I checked it, and I checked it again, like 10 times. And then I just started crying,” Donaldson told Iowa Lottery officials. “I just said, ‘There’s no way. Not me!’”

Donaldson, of Council Bluffs, won the game’s jackpot prize of $50,000. The $5 PAC-MAN scratch-off game offers eight top prizes with odds of 1 in 122,295.

She said she plans to pay off her vehicle with part of her winnings, then use the remainder for savings.

“It’s well-deserved on my part, I think,” Donaldson told lottery officials while accepting her prize on March 3.

Council Bluffs is in western Iowa, about a 65-mile drive northeast from Lincoln, Nebraska.