Virginia woman wins lottery jackpot with first-ever ticket purchase

First time was the charm for a Virginia woman who recently won a $50,000 lottery jackpot.

Katelynne Berland, of Yorktown, Virginia, was running errands in mid-April when she decided to buy herself a lottery ticket for the first time.

As it turned out, that was a good decision: Her ticket was a winner for the April 14th day drawing of the Pick 5 game. 

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Pick 5 tickets are sold for either $0.50 or $1, and players can opt to either select "any order," "exact order," or a combination of the two, said the Virginia Lottery's website. 

Berland's ticket matched the numbers 2-9-4-2-3 in the exact order, meaning she won the top prize of $50,000, said the Virginia Lottery's website. 

The odds of hitting the five numbers in the exact order are 1 in 100,000, the organization said. 

The Pick 5 is drawn twice a day, at 1:59 p.m. and at 11 p.m., said the lottery's website. 

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With her winnings, Berland said she plans on helping to pay her sister's college tuition, she told the Virginia Lottery. 

The Virginia Lottery was established in 1987, after Virginians voted in favor of creating a state-operated lottery. 

The first tickets were sold the following year, said the Virginia Lottery's website.

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Since 1999, the Virginia Lottery's profits have supported K-12 public education in the commonwealth, said its website.

In 2023, this amounted to more than $867 million that went to public education in the state. 

This was about 10% of the commonwealth's budget for K-12 schools, said the Virginia Lottery's website. 

These funds are distributed throughout Virginia's counties. 

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"Ms. Berland lives in York County, which received more than $5.3 million in Lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year," said the Virginia Lottery. 

During the 2023 fiscal year, the Virginia Lottery had sales of $4.6 billion. 

Of those sales, more than $3.5 billion was distributed to lottery winners and the retailers who sold the winning tickets, said the lottery's website.  

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FOX Business reached out to the Virginia Lottery for additional information about its games and prize structure.

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