An Arkansas couple struck gold twice after winning $1 million and $50,000 jackpots, both of them during this past weekend.
Stephen, 54, and Terri Weaver, 55, of Stuttgart, Ark., left on Friday for a weekend trip to a cabin near Greers Ferry Lake, over 100 miles away. On Saturday evening, they stopped at T-Ricks convenience store in the nearby city of Pangburn. Stephen bought five $1 Million Riches instant scratch-off tickets while his wife bought four.
"We pick up a couple tickets on the weekend when we go to our cabin on the river," said Terri, an office manager with a water company. "It's a weekly thing. We just pick up a few here and a few there."
Once they brought the tickets to the cabin, they realized one of Stephen's $20 tickets won the $1 million jackpot.
"I almost had a heart attack," said Stephen, who owns a plumbing company. "I had to have an aspirin."
While Stephen wanted to return home after learning of the win, Terri hoped to stay for the weekend.
"He thought he should sleep with it under his pillow," Terri said. "He ended up locking it in the truck."
On Sunday, they stopped at the convenience store again and bought six tickets "just for the heck of it, because it was fun," Terri explained.
This time, Terri's Taxes Paid instant ticket for which she paid $10 was a $50,000 winner.
"When she handed it to me, I fell back in my chair and almost went into cardiac arrest again," Stephen said of the second ticket. "We jumped around, hollered, and screamed. It's just not possible that it happened twice. The odds must be astronomical."
