Woman scratches lottery ticket as friend drives — and wins big. ‘Stop the car’

A woman won $5 with a lottery ticket she received for her birthday, then she used the money to buy another ticket that won her a much bigger prize in Virginia.

Barbara Ann Geris has now claimed the first $100,000 jackpot in the 10X The Money scratch-off game, according to the Virginia Lottery.

The Culpeper woman told lottery officials one of her friends gave her a lottery ticket for her birthday, and she won a $5 prize. She said she claimed her winnings and used it to buy a $5 lottery ticket at a Walmart in Manassas.

Her friend was driving her home when Geris said she scratched the new lottery ticket and saw she had won $100,000.

She told lottery officials that she yelled, “Stop the car! Stop the car!”

Geris beat the 1-in-1,142,400 odds of winning one of three top prizes in the scratch-off game, which debuted in June, Virginia Lottery records show.

Culpeper is about a 70-mile drive southwest from Washington, D.C.

This story was originally published September 15, 2025 at 4:11 PM with the headline "Woman scratches lottery ticket as friend drives — and wins big. ‘Stop the car’."