ALEXANDRIA, Ky. — A Kentucky man was only half-serious when a clerk scanned his $20 scratch-off ticket in a Kentucky Lottery promotion. But the $1 million he won was serious business.
The clerk at a Speedway in Alexandria scanned the code at the bottom of Michael Allen’s Mega Millionaire ticket on Wednesday and was perplexed at the message, which read “KLC,” lottery officials said in a news release.
“She said, ‘It says See KLC.’ And I said, ‘What does Kentucky Fried Chicken have to do with this?’” the truck driver joked in a news release issued on Wednesday.
KLC stands for “Kentucky Lottery Corporation” and is displayed when the prize is too large to be paid at a retail location, lottery officials said.
After scanning it at the ticket checker, Allen saw $871,000 pop up on the screen. That was the payoff for the $1 million promotion.
“I took a picture of it three times because I was afraid it would go away,” Allen told lottery officials.
KLC indeed. While Colonel Sanders’ original KFC restaurant is 165 miles south of Alexandria in Corbin, Allen realized he had just won a bucket of money.
Allen called his wife, who was skeptical.
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“He’s always joking around so I thought for sure it wasn’t true,” Sheila Allen told lottery officials. “But then he got home and showed me. I said, ‘Oh my God.’ I was so shocked, I couldn’t sleep.”
The couple went to lottery headquarters in Louisville to claim the prize, a lump-sum option of $622,765 after taxes.
“Can you pinch me?” Michael Allen asked Kentucky Lottery officials.
The windfall is not going to change Michael Allen’s life.
“It won’t change a thing,” he said. “We’ll still work, and life will stay the same.”