A Missouri Lottery player won’t soon forget the chain of events that led him to a $100,000 prize on a “$3 Million Supreme” Scratchers ticket purchased at Watson GasMart, 9666 Watson Road, in Crestwood.

It all started with a birthday present.

“I actually originally bought the ticket as a gift for a friend,” he explained. “Another friend alarmed me that this friend would prefer not to get any gifts, so opposed to giving the friend the ticket after I’d already purchased it, I gave him the cost of the ticket and a little extra.”

Then he decided to scratch the ticket himself — but not right away.

“A month had passed, and I’d forgotten that I had the ticket,” he said. “It was only when I was in the process of preparing to move that I remembered that I had it!”

Upon scratching the ticket, he went on quite the journey accepting he’d uncovered such a large prize.

“I actually thought I was hallucinating at first!” he recalled. “I scratched the first spot, and I said, ‘This can’t be right!’”

He waited a few days before checking it, once at a gas station and again at a grocery store before finally believing he’d won.

While he hasn’t decided what he’ll do with most of the prize money, the winner has one more present in mind for his friend.

“Of course, I’m still going to give the friend a sizeable gift again!” he beamed.

In FY25, St. Louis County players won more than $195.9 million in Missouri Lottery prizes, retailers received more than $18.8 million in commissions and bonuses, and more than $47.9 million in Lottery proceeds went to education programs in the county.