Although she calls South Carolina home, Tara Welch has been living in Lafayette for almost a year. As a traveling nurse, Tara typically works at a hospital in one city for around a year and then moves on to another hospital in another city. She loves having the opportunity to live in different areas of the country and getting to know new cities.

With her father back in South Carolina, Tara flies him out to Indiana for visits on a regular basis. When he’s visiting, one thing they like to do together is play Hoosier Lottery Scratch-offs. It’s something fun to do and keeps her dad entertained.

After purchasing a $10 $38,000,000 Spectacular on her way to work one morning, Tara began scratching it while still in her car. Seeing she matched one number, Tara was excited to know she had won what she figured was a small prize.

“Then I saw a few zeroes and thought I had to be hallucinating,” she said. The ticket showed Tara had won $10,000!

Realizing it was time to clock in for her shift, Tara took a quick photo of the ticket and texted it to her dad, asking, “Can you check if this is right?”

A few minutes later, he texted back, “It’s real!”

For now, Tara plans to put her winnings in the bank.

$10 $38,000,000 Spectacular Estimated Overall Odds 1 in 3.89