Lottery winner Donna Osborne of Lancaster County, and Pennsylvania Lottery Deputy Director of Corporate Sales, Staci Coombs, at Lottery Headquarters, in Middletown, Dauphin County on June 26, 2024. (Photo: Pennsylvania Lottery)
After tiring of waiting for a flight to Florida that had been repeatedly delayed, 75-year-old Donna Osborne went home. But not before stopping at a local Speedway where she purchased a winning $5 million Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off ticket.
The feel good lottery stories keep on coming.
Recently, we introduced you to a Western Pa. woman who bought a Pennsylvania Lottery ticket that netted her $1 million, just two weeks before her husband — who worried she might have financial troubles after he was gone — died of a brain tumor.
And now, this: 75-year-old Donna Osborne of Lancaster County won $5 million from a Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off ticket, after just finishing radiation treatment for breast cancer.
If not for a delayed flight, Osborne said she never would have purchased the winning ticket.
“I was at the airport with my daughter,” Osborne said at a press conference celebrating her win. “We were on our way to see family in Florida when the flight got delayed. Well, it was delayed so many times, I decided to go home. My daughter stayed and flew to Florida. If I didn’t leave the airport, I would have never bought that ticket!”
Osborne purchased the winning Monopoly Own it All scratch off ticket at a Speedway in Leola, and scratched the winner right in the parking lot.
“I could not believe my eyes,” Osborne said. “I went back into the store and said, ‘Can you please check this? Is it right or wrong?’ Well, the clerk said, ‘It’s right!’”
Osborne said she immediately called her daughter, who was in Florida, to tell her the great news.
“She didn’t believe me,” Osborne said..
Osborne, a grandmother and great-grandmother, said she provides transportation for the Amish for a living and has been doing it for decades. She said she doesn’t plan to retire anytime soon.
“I don’t know what I’d do with myself, I have to keep moving,” Osborne said. “I think I’ll invest some of the prize, sure, but then go to Alaska!”
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