Piggly Wiggly clerk’s mistake leads SC woman to lottery game’s grand prize
A clerk at a grocery store mistakenly gave a woman a lottery ticket that was different than what she requested, but the faux pas paid off in a big way for her, South Carolina Education Lottery officials said Thursday in a news release.
The Darlington woman ended up winning a $303,000 grand prize on the Palmetto Cash 5 game that was something different than what she originally wanted, according to the release.
“If the clerk hadn’t made a mistake, I wouldn’t have won,” the winner said in the release.
Prior to the Sept. 4 Palmetto Cash 5 drawing, the woman stopped in the Piggly Wiggly supermarket on Pearl Street in Darlington to purchase a ticket, officials said.
The woman wanted to buy a game where she would play her own numbers, which is what she normally does, according to the release. But the clerk made the mistake of giving the woman a quick pick ticket where the numbers were randomly selected, officials said.
The clerk handed her the wrong game which she accepted, according to the release. Realizing the error, the clerk asked if she still wanted a Palmetto Cash 5 ticket.
“I said, ‘Yes,’ ” the woman recalled.
That quick pick surprised her by matching all five numbers to win the game’s top prize, according to the release.
The winning numbers from the Sept. 4 Palmetto Cash 5 drawing were 5, 9, 25, 34 and 41.
The winner will be allowed to retain some privacy, as South Carolina is one of 11 states — along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.
The woman told lottery officials that she plans to use her newfound windfall to fix up her house.
The odds of winning $303,000 playing Palmetto Cash 5 are 850,668-to-1, according to the release.
The Darlington Piggly Wiggly grocery store received a commission of $3,030 for selling the winning ticket, officials said.
The Palmetto Cash 5 jackpot for Thursday night’s drawing is $140,000.
It costs $2 to purchase a Palmetto Cash 5 ticket, and drawings are held on a daily basis at 6:59 p.m., officials said.
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This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Piggly Wiggly clerk’s mistake leads SC woman to lottery game’s grand prize."
