Family splits $500,000 lottery top prize: ‘I asked to be pinched a few times’

CALIFORNIA, Ky. (WAVE/Gray News) - An exciting family moment has been created for a Kentucky father and his two sons after they cashed a $500,000 lottery scratch-off ticket.

According to the Kentucky Lottery, William Hicks Jr. works with his brother, Stephen Hicks, and his father, William Hicks Sr., at the family’s garage door repair company.

The brothers said they often ride to work together and sometimes stop for lottery tickets, and last week they bought two tickets at a Speedway gas station in Alexandria.

WAVE reports the $2,000 Loaded ticket matched the numbers needed to hit the game’s top prize worth $500,000.

“I’ll usually scratch one, and he’ll [Stephen Hicks] scratch one,” William Hicks Jr. told lottery officials. “And then Stephen told me we won $500,000. We must have looked at it 40 times and I asked to be pinched a few times.”

The brothers’ father also could not believe the news when they called him.

“I was like, ‘no way,’” William Hicks Sr. said. “They spent the next few minutes trying to convince me.”

Lottery officials said the three men went to lottery headquarters and split the winnings between them, each receiving a check for $118,333.33 after taxes.

Stephen Hicks said he needed tires for his truck but is now looking at just buying a new ride altogether.

William Hicks Jr. told officials he plans to pay his mother’s mortgage and help his grandmother, while his father said he plans to purchase the property he had been renting out his farmhouse.

The Kentucky Lottery said the Speedway store would receive a $5,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.

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