LaGrange man 1st jackpot winner through iHOPE

ATLANTA — John Loper, 70, of LaGrange is the first jackpot winner from a Georgia Lottery ticket purchased online, and is the first to win a large prize from a ticket purchased with an iHOPE card.

Loper purchased a Fantasy 5 ticket on mygalottery.com with an iHOPE card and matched all five numbers from the Sept. 29 drawing, winning the $100,000 jackpot prize.

The lucky winner claimed his prize Monday at the Georgia Lottery District Office in Columbus.

Winning numbers from the Sept. 29 Fantasy 5 drawing were: 5-12-23-36-39.

“I was watching the drawing, and sure enough, there it was,” recalled Loper, a retired federal agent. “I was happy.”

No stranger to winning Georgia Lottery prizes, Loper won a $100,513 Fantasy 5 prize in 1994.

“I put it in the bank,” he said of that win.

He also plans to save his most recent windfall.

“I’m waiting for the third time for lightening to strike,” Loper quipped.

Fantasy 5, Mega Millions and Powerball tickets are available online with an iHOPE account.

For more information, visit www.mygalottery.com.

Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned more than $14.6 billion to the state of Georgia for education. All Georgia Lottery profits go to pay for specific educational programs, including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s Pre-K Program. More than 1.6 million students have received HOPE, and more than 1.2 million 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.

WSBTV