A Waterloo man said a store clerk convinced him to buy a scratch ticket last week and that ticket ended up winning a big prize.

Mark Burke claimed the 52nd of 72 prizes of $10,000 available in the Iowa Lottery’s '$250,000 Riches' scratch game.

Burke, 54, said he was having a recent string of bad luck playing scratch tickets so he wasn’t planning to buy one during his regular stop last week at his local Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits, 2126 Kimball Road. However, the store clerk knew Burke’s buying habits and asked him if we wanted a scratch ticket, too. Burke gave in and the rest is history.

He said he scratched off his ticket at night after his wife had fallen asleep.

“I’m trying to wipe my eyes; I can’t see right. I’m like double, triple looking at it,” Burke told lottery employees Thursday as he claimed his prize at the lottery’s regional office in Cedar Rapids. “So I run upstairs like the house is on fire. (My wife) was sleeping and she thought something was going wrong. She looked (at the ticket) and she was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’”

Burke, who works at a snack foods factory in Waterloo, said he plans to use his winnings to pay bills.

The $250,000 Riches scratch game is a $20 ticket. More details about how to play this game, and number of prizes still up for grabs in it can be found on the Iowa Lottery’s website, www.ialottery.com.

Contributed By: Iowa Lottery

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