TRENTON (Nov. 3, 2017) – Henry F. of Bayville in Ocean County plays Lottery games almost every day. His favorite is Jersey Cash 5. As usual, he purchased a few boards for the June 29 drawing. He never could have known that this day would be anything but usual. The following day, Henry went to the store and scanned a few tickets to check for winners. Though the machine displayed that one of his tickets was a winner, it didn’t show the prize amount.

When Henry approached the retail counter, the store owner asked Henry, "Did you buy your tickets yesterday? Did you check them? We had a $700,000 winner on the Jersey Cash 5 game!" Henry, not really sure if he had the winning ticket, replied, "I guess I wasn't the lucky guy."

Later that day, Henry and his wife confirmed that his ticket matched the Jersey Cash 5 numbers drawn, 26, 27, 28, 33 and 35 winning the $742,327 jackpot. His lucky retailer was Ocean Gate Market on 216 Ocean Gate Ave, Ocean Gate in Ocean County.

Fayyaz M. of Lawrenceville likes to play Jersey Cash 5 because he sees how often people hit the jackpot. Each weekend, Fayyaz purchases two or three tickets, one Quick Pick line at a time. Fayyaz works until midnight every night so in the morning, he asked his son to check and read off the winning numbers for the July 17 drawing. As he listened to his son speak the numbers, 21, 26, 35, 38, and 43, and saw how they matched his, he felt, “God was watching” and helping him out. Fayyaz said he would have been happy with matching four of the five numbers but of course he is grateful for the $152,884 jackpot win. Fayyaz plans to use this money to pay some bills and build his savings. His lucky retailer is Princeton Luk Oil LLC, 3513 Route 1 South, Princeton in Mercer County.

Karen O. of Manalapan in Monmouth County and her husband enjoy playing specific numbers in the Lottery games. Her husband's favorite numbers to play are 03, 05, 11, 13 and 37. The numbers all relate to sports; some were the numbers he wore on his jerseys over the years, others are of favorite players. After the July 22 Jersey Cash 5 drawing, they have taken on an entirely new meaning.

Karen's husband was golfing and he had his eye on a new set of golf clubs. Thinking about the ticket he had purchased the night before, he checked his phone to see if he had any new-found money to use for those brand new clubs. When he compared his numbers to the results from the night before, he was amazed to find out that lucky sports numbers had just turned into $553,315 jackpot-winning-numbers.

Karen and her husband said they are considering how to best manage the winnings to invest it for the future but there was one purchase that wasn't going to wait - the new set of golf clubs. Their lucky retailer was Soda King, 300 Gordon’s Corner Road in Manalapan in Monmouth County.