Football fan’s wife wakes up to yelling — but not about the game. He won the lottery

Jarrod Paxton said he was watching football and playing the lottery at home in Virginia while his wife slept.

Then he yelled, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

His wife woke up, thinking it was about football, lottery officials said.

But it wasn’t the football game. It was the Virginia Lottery’s Jackpot Spectacular game.

And Paxton had won $1,910,544.

No one had ever won a prize that big playing the state’s online lottery games, officials said in a Nov. 28 news release.

“I told my wife, ‘I think I just won $1.9 million!’, and she said ‘No, you didn’t!’” the Bedford County man told lottery officials.

Paxton said he plans to “pay debts and take care of his family” with the record-setting winnings, according to the release.

“It’s hard to believe!” he told officials.

Jackpot Spectacular is played in Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the Virginia Lottery. The game has a jackpot that increases until someone wins the top prize.

Bedford County is in southern Virginia about 140 miles northwest of Raleigh and 140 miles southwest of Richmond.

This story was originally published November 28, 2023 at 6:14 PM with the headline "Football fan’s wife wakes up to yelling — but not about the game. He won the lottery."