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Man buys 30 lottery tickets at $1 a piece — and all of them were winners in Virginia

Dana Bickham of Suffolk, Virginia, bought 30 Pick 4 tickets at $1 each and all were winners, the state says.
Dana Bickham of Suffolk, Virginia, bought 30 Pick 4 tickets at $1 each and all were winners, the state says. Virginia Lottery photo

A previous winner with a habit of buying about two dozen lottery tickets at a time has come up a big winner yet again, the Virginia Lottery reports.

Dana Bickham of Suffolk bought 30 Pick 4 tickets at $1 each, all with the four-digit combination of 1-1-2-9.

They all came up winners, and each was worth $5,000, the Virginia Lottery said in a Jan. 10 news release.

“I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’” Bickman told lottery officials.

His prize came to $150,000 in the September drawing.

The chances of matching the four numbers in order are 1 in 10,000, the lottery says.

It’s the second time Bickman has used the multi-ticket approach and had it pay off.

He bought 25 Pick 4 tickets in May — with the four-digit combination of 3-5-6-8 — and won $125,000, lottery officials said. Bickman said “he picked that four-digit combination because he had a good feeling about it.”

His plan this time is to hold off on a spending spree and “maybe do some traveling.”

The 30 tickets were purchased at the Holiday Food Store on North Main Street in Suffolk, which is not the same place he got tickets the first time he was a big winner, officials said. Suffolk is about 80 miles southeast of Richmond.

BEHIND THE STORY

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When gambling is more than a game

Gambling is designed to be a source of entertainment.

If you or a loved one shows signs of gambling addiction, you can seek help by calling the national gambling hotline at 1-800-522-4700 or visiting the National Council on Problem Gambling website.

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This story was originally published January 11, 2024 at 1:35 PM with the headline "Man buys 30 lottery tickets at $1 a piece — and all of them were winners in Virginia."

MP
Mark Price
The Charlotte Observer
Mark Price is a state reporter for The Charlotte Observer and McClatchy News outlets in North Carolina. He joined the network of newspapers in 1991 at The Charlotte Observer, covering beats including schools, crime, immigration, LGBTQ issues, homelessness and nonprofits. He graduated from the University of Memphis with majors in journalism and art history, and a minor in geology. 
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