Student Gives NJ Teacher $500,000 Lottery Gift

Just about every morning on Magic 98.3, I give away New Jersey Lottery instant games. Sometimes it’s just the lottery tickets, and sometimes I’ll combine them with concert or show tickets.

I’ve been doing this for a long time and have given away literally thousands of New Jersey Lottery Instant Games. Through the years, I have been contacted by a few winners with a thank you because they got a winning ticket.

If I remember correctly, some have won a jackpot as much as five hundred dollars. However, I often think, “If someone won a million bucks, would they let me or anyone know about it?”

I’ve never won a large amount of money, but if I did, I think that I’d want to keep it private for a variety of reasons. So, maybe we’ve had some big winners, but we may never know.

Similarly, an anonymous teacher in Ocean County New Jersey got one of the best end-of-school-year gifts ever.

When our kids are young, and the school year ends, it’s common for us to have our little students give their teacher a thank you gift. It could be as simple as a convenience store gift card or “World's Best Teacher” coffee mug. Sometimes, a short stack of New Jersey lottery tickets is given, and everybody loves them.

So was the case for a teacher at a school in Ocean County, New Jersey. According to Shore News Network, one parent of a student gave their teacher a scratchy that ended up worth half a million dollars.

Related: Traffic Stop Leads to Lottery Win

All we know is that it was a public-school teacher, and they chose to keep their windfall private. In June, at the end of the 2025 school year, they received a bunch of New Jersey Lottery tickets.

As we often do, the teacher didn’t scratch them immediately. The Network article says the winning ticket sat in their car untouched for several weeks until they finally checked their “Shore Thing” scratcher.

Then, after they blew the tiny silver scratch-off flakes from the ticket, they screamed in disbelief after learning they just became $500,000 richer.

After about 24% withheld by the lottery for federal taxes, and another 5% New Jersey state tax, they’ll still pocket approximately $355,000. I wonder how the parent of the student feels right now.

Anything can happen in Jersey!