Man trusts random license plate numbers in Virginia Lottery to win top prize 42 times

Winning $5,000 in the lottery isn’t a stunning victory — unless you buy multiple tickets with the exact same numbers.

That’s exactly what Larry Speight did this month in the Virginia Lottery’s Pick 4 game.

Speight invested $42 to buy 42 tickets in the same drawing, each of which offered a top prize of $5,000.

“Each one of those plays won the top prize, for total winnings of $210,000,” the Virginia Lottery said in an April 5 press release.

“The chances of matching all four numbers in exact order are 1 in 10,000.”

Players are allowed to pick any four numbers “from 0000 through 9999” in Pick 4, according to the game’s website.

Speight’s lucky numbers were 8-6-6-0 — and he confesses to picking them in an unusual way.

“He had seen the four-digit combination ... on some license tags, so he decided to select those numbers for the March 19 night drawing,” the lottery reported.

He bought the tickets at a Five Brothers Quick Stop in Hampton, about 16 miles from his home in Carrollton.

Speight admits to feeling lucky in the moment.

“I wanted to hit big!” he told lottery officials. “If you’ve got a good feeling with it, roll with it!”

The money will be saved and put toward retirement, Speight said.

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Man trusts random license plate numbers in Virginia Lottery to win top prize 42 times."