$3M Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off ticket winner is furloughed Indiana County steelworker

Two weeks after winning $3 million on a scratch-off Pennsylvania Lottery ticket at a Giant Eagle in Ligonier, Randy Lytle, a furloughed steelworker, still can’t believe his lottery luck.

Lytle, 30, of Robinson, Indiana County, won the top prize on a Monopoly 100X scratch-off May 31. He said Monday during a brief news conference that it was because of another lottery win that he was even at the Ligonier store.

“The only reason I was there was because I won a $1,000 ticket the day before at a (Sheetz) store along Route 22. This was the closest Giant Eagle store to where I live that could cash it,” Lytle said.

Robinson is about 20 minutes north of Ligonier.

After Lytle cashed the other winning ticket just after 1 p.m. on Memorial Day, he decided to buy another ticket from a machine as he was walking out of the store at 117 S. Walnut St. His fiancee, Chelsie Pierce, was waiting in the parking lot.

“I was sitting in my car right over there and scratched it off,” Lytle grinned, pointing to a row of parking spaces next to the pharmacy pickup area outside the grocery store door.

“My fiancee was in disbelief, but I think she believed it more than me,” he said.

Next, Lytle, who grew up in Fayette County, said he had to call his mom, Patty, who lives in the Uniontown area.

“I thought he was lying,” Patty Lytle said, laughing.

His mother joined Lytle and other family members — his fiancee; his older brother, Donnie; and his 10-year-old son, Hunter — along with lottery officials outside the store in Ligonier to celebrate the jackpot win.

Lytle said he still can’t comprehend his win but said he does intend to invest a lot of the winnings, buy his mother a new home, sock some away for Hunter’s college education and “definitely go on a vacation.”

He does not plan to return to TSI Titanium in Derry Township, where he was furloughed in August, he said.

“And I plan to get Donnie out of the ground … he’s a miner. We’ll start some kind of a business together … although I don’t know what yet,” he said.

Lytle said his father died of cancer when he was 8 and he’s gone through some tough times. He was homeless for a period, he said.

“This is a way to pay my mom back,” he said.

Lytle and his mom both said they often play the lottery.

Asked where he might have acquired his lottery luck, both Patty and Randy Lytle quickly replied it was from his late father. Patty Lytle said her late husband won several thousand dollars in a large lottery jackpot called Cash Explosion in Ohio in 1991.

The Giant Eagle store received a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.