One mistake — or a great catch — makes all the difference

By Kate Northrop

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A South Carolina woman tossed a lottery ticket worth $200,000 in the trash, but her husband's keen eye saved the day.

A South Carolina couple almost lost out on a new dream home after the husband picked a $200,000 winning lottery ticket out of the garbage that his wife had thrown away.

They were just a hair away from losing that home entirely.

Recently, the anonymous woman bought a $5 "Double Sided Dollars Extra Play" scratch-off ticket at the Circle K on East Main Street in Spartanburg.

She scratched it off and thought it was a losing ticket, so she chucked it into the garbage bin. Her husband later spotted the ticket in the trash and gave it a second thought. He took it out and realized his wife's grave mistake.

"You have a 12 on it," he called to her.

She took the ticket and scratched it off some more. Underneath the matching number was a $200,000 prize.

The South Carolina Lottery announced on Thursday that the Upstate couple had come forward to claim their prize. They expressed their happiness ad gratitude with how everything played out in the end, the Lottery said in a press release.

Thanks to the anonymous man's great catch, they'll now be able to buy a new house. That, and the retailer that sold the winning ticket received a commission of $2,000 for selling the winning ticket.

The couple claimed the third top prize of $200,000 out of the four available at the game's launch in March. There are also 32 out of 125 second-tier prizes of $1,000 and 161 out of 888 third-tier prizes of $500 remaining.

The odds of winning any prize in the $5 "Double Sided Dollars Extra Play" game are 1 in 3.97.