A woman in the US has scooped a fortune after placing a $1 bet.
Angela Ryan of Ashland, Kentucky, won a staggering $750,000 – the largest instant play win in the state's lottery history, according to officials.
"I placed the bet and saw the hearts go up on the screen," Ryan said. "I thought it was only going to be a $20 or $30 win."
Ryan said winning the jackpot was special because she recently lost her mother, and the win came the day before Mother's Day.
"I was thinking of her and thought, 'I'm going to win this,'" Ryan said.
Her plans for the money? First she'll pay off her bills, then she'll travel the country.
The winner of the largest US lottery jackpot in history is a former student in the California public school system who wants to mostly stay out of the spotlight.
California lottery officials (pictured) on Tuesday said Edwin Castro (not in picture) won the record-breaking $2.04 billion ($2.8b) Powerball prize in November, but they couldn't say anything else about him.
State law says Castro's name is in the public record, but nothing else is — including his age and where he lives.
Castro declined an invitation from state officials to speak to reporters on Tuesday. Instead, he sent a written statement that said he was "shocked and ecstatic" to have won the lottery.
California's lottery benefits public schools, and Castro's statement identified himself as "being educated in the California public education system."
"It's gratifying to hear that, as a result of my win, the California school system greatly benefits as well," he said.
Click through to see more crazy lottery wins.
An 18-year-old student has won $51.7 million (CAD$48 million) after buying a lottery ticket for the first time.
Juliette Lamour, from the province of Ontario in Canada, bought the ticket "for fun" at the suggestion of her grandfather.
"I still can't believe I hit the gold ball jackpot on my very first lottery ticket," she told Global News.
The student found out she won while she was at work.
Despite being told she could leave early, her mother suggested she stay and finish her shift.
Lamour plans to invest most of the money with the help of her father, who works as a financial advisor.
She plans to travel after school before returning to Ontario to continue studying to become a doctor.
"Money doesn't define you," she said.
"It's the work you do that will define you."
Click through for more record-breaking lotto wins.
Juan Hernandez from Uniondale, New York recently won a $13.9 million (USD $10 million) lottery prize three years after he won another prize for the same amount.
After his second win, Hernandez told New York Lottery officials he was "still trying to spend the $10 million (USD)" he won in 2019.
The first time Hernandez won, he was playing a $350,000,000 USD Cash Spectacular scratch-off ticket.
The second time he won on a Deluxe scratch-off.
The odds of winning the top prize on Deluxe is 1 in 3,521,600, according to the New York Lottery.
In 2019, an inner-city Sydney nurse became the recipient of the biggest individual prize ever won in Australian lottery history, a huge $107,575,649.08.
The woman, who is in her 40s and who has remained anonymous, holds the record for Australia's biggest win.
"We were able to buy a lovely house and it's going to be a family home for generations to come," the woman told The Lott.
She has also made donations to a number of charities.
Single mother of three Lerynne West won $476 million (USD$344 million) in Powerball in 2018 in the US.
She later created The Callum Foundation, named after her grandson who died soon after being born.
The foundation now focuses on poverty, education, animal welfare and veterans.
She later went onto the Ellen DeGeneres show to announce a donation of $500,000 to a foundation that assists wounded veterans.
Northern Ireland couple Frances and Patrick Connolly won $215 million (£115m) in the EuroMillions lottery in 2019 but two years later, they had given more than half of it away.
They chose to disperse their winnings among loved ones, charities and those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time their win was the biggest ever EuroMillions jackpot in Northern Ireland.
Wisconsin resident Manuel Franco won the $1 billion (USD$768.4 million) Powerball jackpot -- the third-largest lottery amount in US history -- on March 27, 2019.
At 24, he was also one of the youngest Powerball winners.
"It feels like a dream," Franco said.
"It was amazing, my heart started racing, blood pumping. I screamed for about five or 10 minutes."
"My dad cried lot," he added.
On January 20, 2021 a single ticket from Maryland won just over $1 billion (USD$731 million).
The win entered the Hall of Fame of Powerball's largest jackpot.
in August 2017, Mavis Wanczyk of Chicopee, Massachusetts, took home a cash lump sum of $664 million (USD$480.5 million) in Powerball.
The first thing on her to do list was to call her employer to say she wouldn't be coming back.
At the time, the amount was the largest single win of a jackpot in history.
In 2012 Urooj Khan won $1.3 million (USD$1 million) in the Illinois lottery but his mysterious death soon after sparked calls of murder.
Authorities initially declared his death was due to natural causes but at his brother's insistence, more tests were carried out and a lethal amount of cyanide was found in his blood.
His body was then exhumed to see if there were traces of poison in his stomach.
But authorities couldn't charge his wife, who had eaten the same meal that night.
More tests later found his arteries were 75 per cent blocked and the natural death theory stuck.
His daughter received one-third of his winnings while his wife got two-thirds and the entirety of their dry-cleaning business.
The world's largest lottery prize won on a single ticket went to a lucky person in South Carolina, in the US.
That ticket holder won around $2.2 billion (USD$1.537 billion).
Powerball in the United States holds the world record for the largest prize ever awarded in the lottery.
The prize topped $2.3 billion (USD$1.586 billion and was won by three ticketholders in January 2016.
John and Lisa Robinson from Tennessee were the first winners to come forward.
The two other winners came from Florida and California.
EuroMillions holds the record for the biggest lottery win in Europe, a staggering $328 million (€210 million).
A female ticket holder from Switzerland scooped the entire prize on February 26, 2021.
However, she chose to remain anonymous.
A man dressed as Darth Vader collected a cheque for $131 million (USD$95 million) in July, 2020.
The winner, who identified himself only as W Brown, came forward to claim the single-ticket jackpot victory while dressed as the iconic character from the Star Wars franchise.
Lottery winners in Jamaica have to receive the prize in person in order to claim it.
One lucky player won $327 million (€209 million) when their ticket matched all the numbers in Italy's SuperEnalotto draw in August 2019.
It is the second highest lottery win in Europe.
Scotty Thomas, from Fayetteville in the US won the North Carolina's Lucky for Life lottery twice.
He wasn't sure if he had bought a ticket so filled out the online form twice.
He won $35,700 (US$25,000) each year for life with each ticket in the November 27, 2021, draw.
That prize is the Lucky for Life's drawing second-biggest prize, behind a $1400 a day for life pay-out, according to the lottery.
"When I realised I won, I had to lay down on the floor because I really just couldn't believe it," the 49-year-old said.
"It's just a blessing."
A UK couple who won a $254 million (£148million) lottery jackpot proved that money can't buy happiness, later announcing their divorce.
Adrian Bayford and his wife Gillian scooped the EuroMillions in 2012 but when their nine-year marriage came to an end just 15 months later, both parties blamed the stress of their newfound wealth.