Horoscope helps great-grandfather of 4 win $378,000

Thursday, June 10, 2010

ATLANTA – Lady Luck was the astrology sign that helped one great-grandfather of four chart a Georgia Lottery prize. Jerry Simmons of Toccoa is one of five players to win $378,090 each from matching all five winning numbers in the May 31 Fantasy 5 drawing.

“Our stars in our horoscope readings were the same,” Simmons said of himself and his wife, Dorothy. “It talked about our finances.”

He purchased his Quik Pik ticket at Royal Food Store #0032, 1061 Highway 106 in Toccoa, on Memorial Day. Winning numbers from the May 31 drawing were: 3-14-17-23-28. The other jackpot prize winning tickets were purchased in Crandall, Macon, Tallapoosa and Jackson.

The total $1.89 million Fantasy 5 jackpot is the largest in Georgia Lottery history.

Simmons, 72, discovered his win when he called the Georgia Lottery’s Player Information Hot Line and saw the results on the Georgia Lottery’s website.

“My wife thought someone had dropped a bomb,” he said. “When I told her, she was worse than I was. We had a ball.”

Retired since 1999, Simmons and his wife have four adult children, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

He plans to invest his winnings.

Georgia Lottery retailers selling winning Fantasy 5 jackpot tickets receive a retailer incentive bonus of $2,000. The retailer incentive bonus increases by $2,000 each time Fantasy 5 rolls. If more than one winning jackpot ticket is sold, the retailers selling the winning jackpot tickets will share the bonus. Royal Food Store will receive a $4,000 retailer incentive bonus.

Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned more than $11.7 billion to the state of Georgia for education. All Georgia Lottery profits go to pay for specific educational programs, including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s Pre-K Program. More than 1.2 million students have received HOPE, and more than 1 million 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.

For more information on the Georgia Lottery Corp., please visit:
www.galottery.com

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Tandi Reddick
Media Relations Manager

P 404.215.5062
F 404.215.8983
media [at] galottery [dot] org

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