Gloucester resident Oletha Etheridge recently won a $1 million prize in the Virginia Lottery’s $100,000 a Year scratch-off ticket game. Most people would consider such a windfall to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But for Oletha, this is the second time she has won the jackpot.
The Virginia woman struck gold twice in her life, illustrating that lightning may strike the same area more than once.
“You could say that Oletha Etheridge is a lucky woman. In her 20s, she won $25,000 from the Virginia Lottery,” the lottery agency revealed in its winner announcement. “Now in her 60s, she’s won again.”
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Oletha bought her winning $100,000 a year ticket from a Food Lion supermarket at 7465 Hargett Blvd. in Gloucester. Virginia Lottery stated that after scratching it, she told one of her daughters, “Are you sitting down? ‘Cause I have something to tell you.”
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The ticket stated that she had won the game’s grand prize, $100,000 every year for ten years. Winners of this game have the option of receiving the entire prize in annual installments or a one-time lump-sum payment. Oletha, along with her two daughters, Taletha and Takema, chose the one-time cash option of $816,000 before taxes.
The Virginia Lottery announced the family’s decision, confirming that the prize would be split among Oletha and her daughters. While the payout was slightly less than the full $1 million, the lump sum allowed the Etheridge family to make immediate plans for their winnings.
Four decades ago, when Oletha won $25,000 in her 20s, she used her prize money to buy a house. This time around, she plans to invest in the property that has been part of her life since that first win. With her 2025 prize, Oletha is planning to add rooms to her home as well as purchase “an affordable Corvette.”
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Her daughters, meanwhile, are inspired by their mother’s earlier decision. They intend to use their share of the prize money exactly as she once did—to purchase homes of their own.
“It’s come full circle,” the Virginia Lottery noted, pointing out how Oletha’s first prize helped her set down roots, and now, decades later, her daughters will do the same.
The chances of winning that top prize are 1 in 612,000, while the odds of winning any prize at all in the game are 1 in 2.91.
The $100,000 a Year scratcher (game #2343) is one of dozens of instant-win games offered by the Virginia Lottery. It features prizes ranging from $20 up to the $1 million top prize. Oletha’s ticket represented the second of the three available top prizes, which means one top prize remains unclaimed.
Beyond individual wins, the Virginia Lottery stresses that all lottery proceeds go straight to K-12 education in the state. In Fiscal Year 2025 alone, the Lottery raised more than $901 million for Virginia’s public schools, accounting for over 10% of the total K-12 budget. Gloucester County, where Oletha lives, earned more than $3.5 million in Lottery funds for K-12 education in the previous fiscal year.
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