ATLANTA – A Sumter County hotel clerk has won a hospitable prize from the Georgia Lottery. Mehul Patel of Americus won a $300,000 top prize playing the instant game Golden Age.
Patel, 23, is a full-time student but works part-time as a clerk at a local hotel. With his windfall, Patel plans to finish his studies as an aircraft structure technician.
“My reaction was, ‘It can’t be me,’ ” he said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
According to Patel, he was gassing up at Spectrum, 311 Tripp St. in Americus, when he purchased the ticket.
“I was holding the ticket in my hand and scratched it in the parking lot,” he said. “I got home and later found out that I’d won.”
Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned more than $13.1 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 1.4 million students have received HOPE, and more than 1.1 million 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.
For more information on the Georgia Lottery Corp., please visit:
www.galottery.com and www.lotterybenefitsgeorgians.com
Play Responsibly – It’s All About Fun!