‘Premonition’ led Shepherdsville woman to $80K prize

SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. (FOX 56) — A little persistence and luck paid off for a Shepherdsville woman who won the top prize on a scratch-off.

The Kentucky Lottery said Pamela Howard-Thorton’s family described her as a lucky person.

She said she kept telling herself she needed to buy the lottery’s newest bingo game, but it took a while to get it.

“I just had this premonition—go get that ticket,” Howard-Thorton joked when she came in recently to Kentucky Lottery Headquarters to claim her prize—$57,600 after taxes.

She said she had a dream that she had won a large lottery jackpot, so the next day she went to buy a $5 Flamingo Bingo Scratch-off game.

“I went to the store, and I still didn’t buy the ticket that I was supposed to buy. I bought a different ticket and won $200,” she said. ”So, I went home and kept telling myself, ‘Go get that ticket.’” 

Howard-Thorton said she returned to the Speedway in Lebanon Junction that same day and cashed in her winning $200 Scratch-Off ticket and bought four more Flamingo Bingo tickets.

“They laid on the counter all day long. I had forgotten about them, so at about 11:30 that night, I decided to play them. The first three were not winners, so I put them in the trash. Then I was like ‘where’s my fourth ticket?’ I looked in the trash, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I threw it away,’” she said told lottery officials.

After playing the fourth ticket, she wasn’t sure if the ticket was a winner or not. She asked her husband to check, and when he wasn’t sure, he told her to use the Kentucky Lottery Mobile app to scan it.

“I scanned it, of course, I started crying, and I started shouting and screaming,” she said. “I immediately called my daughter and my mom. My mom has always said she would give anything if she could just see me hit a big ticket before something happens to her. When I called her the night I won, she was so thankful and happy for me.”

Howard-Thorton plans to buy herself a new car, pay off some bills, and give some of her winnings to her mom.

Speedway will receive $800 for selling the winning ticket.

There is one $80,000 top prize and eight $1,000 second-tier prizes left on Flamingo Bingo.