Husband's 'Cheap' Valentine's Day Gift, $10 Scratch-Off Ticket, Turns into $100,000 Win

An Iowa husband’s “cheap” Valentine’s gift certainly paid off.

Don Holmes decided to buy his beloved wife a Casino Riches $10 scratch-off ticket this Feb. 14.

"My husband gave me a gift of a scratch-off and I'm like, 'Oh, that's really expensive,'" Cynthia Holmes said. ”I scratch it off. I won $100,000!”

Holmes, 54, said she couldn’t believe the small gift had turned into something so huge.

She said she couldn’t believe she won until she went to the lottery headquarters in Clive and had the winning ticket scanned.

"[The machine] went, 'Woo hoo!' And I'm like - my hands started shaking and like butterflies in my stomach," said Holmes, who works at Walmart. "It is still sinking in."

Holmes claimed the second of eight top prizes of $100,000 available in the Iowa Lottery's new "Casino Riches" scratch game, according to reports.

"I can pay off my car. I can pay off my house now," she said.

It was certainly a happy Valentine's Day.

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