That was so sweet I think I got a cavity, 
One night years ago I was lying in bed with my girlfriend. The lights were off and I was in the twilight zone of sleep. She was watching the news. When the lottery numbers were announced, suddenly she screamed, turned on the lights, and jumped up and down on the bed.
“I won! I won! I won the lottery! I’m a millionaire! Woo hoo! See, I picked all the right numbers! See, 10, 13, … uh… oh. Nevermind.”
I was not amused.
My grandfather, in the later years of his life, was addicted to the scratch-off lottery tickets. Here, if you get “Entry” three times on your ticket, you can mail it in for a chance to get on the lottery’s TV game show. He put my contact info on the back of a ticket, and I was chosen. I ended up winning $5,000.
We won around $1500 from the Virginia lottery around 17-18 years ago.
I figure that used up all of my lottery luck…
I play pretty regularly with a set of “rules” by which I play. Not that “how” I play has anything to do with it - just thought I’d mention it as this wasn’t a “just happened to pick one up” story.
That said, about 8 years ago I won $21,000 from the California Lottery. And then amazingly enough, a few months later I won another $1,200 (also from the California Lottery).
I actually was within a few weeks of not being able to claim the $21k one (I obviously didn’t know it was worth anything). I had stuffed the ticket away in this drawer, and kind of forgot about it. But then I happened to clean out that drawer, and when I went to cash in the (usually worthless) tickets… bada bing ! In the California lottery, except for the big winners, you only have 180 days (6 months) to claim the lesser winnings. It turned out I had bought the ticket around 4 months prior, so I was close to the time limit when I cashed it in.
Anyway, I do continue to play (of course), and I figure I’m still “up” at this point.
My Uncle won $100,000 once, back when that was a shit-ton of money, mid 1980s. Then he spent it all in less than a year, because he’s a doofus.
Most I’ve ever won is about $40.
I’ve won a few hundred US dollars, a few times. I don’t play very often, and might be ahead of the game by a token amount.
I bought my very first scratch-off lottery ticket on my 18th birthday. My boyfriend at the time was making a big stink in the store about how those are a waste of money, etc. He was so nasty about it that the clerk handed me a coin and said “scratch it here”. I did, and won $25.00. So there, jerky boyfriend!
I still play scratch offs every couple weeks or so, but the most I’ve ever won is $60.00. A coworker I know just won $15,000 on a scratch ticket. She’s using for a new car.
No, I didn’t win the lottery. A true confession follows:
I won second (or third) place in the Oxford, Miss., Downtown Square Association Christmas Drawing one year … 1987, I think. The prize included free dry cleaning, a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses (nice!) and other goodies, donated by various merchants.
I WAS a merchant on the Square. I ran “Back Forty Records,” sold blues & reggae exclusively, and stuffed my own contest box! :eek:
Of COURSE I won a prize! That’s called cheating!
Last Christmas, someone at my wife’s workplace bought her a $2 scratch-off ticket. It was a winner for $10. On a whim, she spent the $10 on two $5 scratch-off tickets and won $100. Now that is a nice Christmas present!
In the early 80’s my cousin won $4 million in Gold Lotto- the biggest prize at that time. Her father had won $30000 in the “Casket” in the 70’s- would have bought 3 houses.
Another Uncle won $50,000 on a lucky scratchie.
My Dad could never win anything.
Sometimes I have luck with scratch-offs when I travel. I remember driving some place for business, getting caught up in the scenery, and having to stop at a small town gas station while my tank was on fumes. As I was filling up, I bought 2 $5 scratch offs.
It was then that I saw the price on the register & realized that at their prices, it was $45 to fill up my tank. The clerk smiled.
I smiled. And I scratched off the tickets. One won $25.00 and I think the other won $15.00. I think her smile slipped a little at that point. I remember handing her the tickets & a fiver for the balance on the gas and whistling my way back to the car and its $15 full tank of gas. 
Off topic, but I can never fill my Mazda 6 for less than $70.
Every year my husband buys tickets to charity lotteries where the grand prize is a million dollar house. For years we won nothing, but this year in the early bird draw he won a $1400 watch. He doesn’t wear watches so he gave it to his Dad.
In the main draw he won $5000 worth of furniture. I am so excited about that. Our couch is threadbare and since my husband refuses to buy anything new until the old stuff breaks, we still have the cheap IKEA stuff from when we first moved in together. It will be so nice to have a real grown up living room.
I never buy tickets, but a few years ago for Christmas my brother gave me a six-month, $50 ticket. Powerball maybe? Anyway, I won $2. Pretty much cemented my resolve to not buy any tickets of my own.
I won my biggest win (so far) a couple of months back, about US$60.
One of my brothers won fifty grand on a scratchie back in the 80s when 50K was a huge amount of money.
I’ve met someone who won multiple millions on the lottery a couple of decades ago.
My then-fiance got 5 numbers + the bonus ball on the UK lottery a month before our wedding. That’s the 2nd prize and, depending on the number of winners that week, can be up to a couple of hundred thousand pounds. He won just short of £70,000, which was not to be sniffed at - this was 1999.
It is a measure of our relationship that I choose the term ‘he won’. We were married for just short of 3 years and when we divorced he still had the full amount in his own bank account. In order to buy me out of my equity in our house he borrowed £20,000 from his retired parents, asking them to re-mortgage their own home to do so, despite his very well paid job and non-contributory pension scheme. He’s a prince.
I won $150 in the Mega Millions once. I had four of the five regular numbers right and I didn’t get the kicker number right. What was crazy is that the two winning numbers I got wrong were 9 and 26, and I had a 7 and a 24. This was for a $300,000,000 jackpot too. I could have died I was so close.
Isn’t there some sort of maxim saying that the statistical odds of you scratching off a winning lottery ticket are just as likely if you never bought a ticket as if you bought one?
Anyways, I once scratched off the numbers on a lottery ticket worth $1,000, and I hadn’t bought the ticket. My boyfriend had bought the ticket, and wanted me to scratch it off for him because he considered me his good luck charm. I guess I was that day!