Game Play: ‘Scratch and Win Shifters: Lovebites Lottery’ – Get three of the same shifter symbols in a horizontal or vertical row; win that shifter. Get three heart symbols, win your choice of lion, wolf, tiger or bear shifter. Get a 2X symbol, win double the prize shown for that symbol. All non-winning tickets may be entered in the second chance drawing to be held monthly.

To Redeem: Contact Karina Ocean at the Sunshine State Lottery. Prizes are subject to availability at time of ticket purchase. The Sunshine State Lottery reserves the right to offer a substitute prize if the winning prize is not available. No substitution for a prize will be made at the request of a winner. Prizes are not transferable and may not be shared. By accepting the prize you agree that your name and picture may be used without any further compensation to you.

Prizes: Shifters offered in the ‘Scratch and Win Shifters: Lovebites Lottery’ have completed a thorough background check and a personality assessment. They are participating in hopes of finding their true mate.

Game Odds and Rules: Visit the Sunshine State Lottery online or your lottery retailer for complete game odds.  All ticket winners must be females and at least eighteen years old.

Remember – you have to play to win, but play responsibly!

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“I’ll go to the deli counter and see what’s on sale while you pick up our lottery tickets,” Gwen said as she grabbed a cart from the front of the store. “That chicken salad Heather bought last week was delicious.”

“Yeah, it was,” I agreed. “But it had a lot of mayo in it—it was probably a zillion calories for one serving.”

“You’ll have to eat it standing up next time,” Gwen teased. “Remember, calories eaten while you’re standing don’t count. They flow down your legs and straight out of your body.”

I snorted. “Don’t I wish that were true!” I patted my stomach. “I’d better do a lot more standing while I eat. I need to get rid of this jelly roll.”

Gwen rolled her eyes. “You, my dear Libby, are a curvy, beautiful woman. Now stop being so hard on yourself and go buy us some winning lottery tickets!”

“Yes, ma’am,” I laughed, trying to sound cheerful, but inside I felt miserable. Gwen was right about one thing. I was curvy, but beautiful... not so much. I used to feel beautiful, but when Evan broke up with me, it had shattered my self-confidence. It had been a nasty break-up. Ugh. A shudder ran through me as I thought of how mean he had been, calling me Ms. Piggy and other names. His words constantly echoed in my head, even now, a year later. And it didn’t help that no one had asked me out since.

“What kind of lunch meat do you want?” Gwen asked.

“Whatever’s on super sale works for me. I’m a bit short on cash this month,” I winced. It was hard to be so cash poor. But Gwen knew. It was no secret that I was struggling.

“Don’t worry about it,” she shook her head. “If we go over and I end up pitching in a few extra bucks, it’s no big deal.”

Gwen was such a sweetheart—so generous. On the weeks it was her turn to grocery shop for the four of us she would buy extra items and pitch in more than her share of the money. I felt guilty about it, but one day I would pay her back.

I sighed as I approached the lottery ticket counter and took a place at the end of it. As usual, it was a fairly long line. There were lots of folks who dreamed about winning the jackpot—me included. I could quit my miserable job waiting tables at Driscoll’s. I’d take a vacation, buy a little house…and I’d definitely buy some nice new clothes. I glanced down at my well-worn sandals. They were so old. I couldn’t remember when I’d bought my last pair of shoes. Of course, I couldn’t afford to waste money on the lottery. The odds of hitting the jackpot were so teeny-tiny…but there was a chance, and it gave me just a little hope—something to dream about. Every week the four of us, me, Gwen, and our good friends and roommates, Heather and Kim, pooled our money to buy ten dollars in lottery tickets. So far, we’d only won once, and we’d only won back what we’d put in that day—ten dollars—but we had whooped and hollered over it and I dreamed of the day we’d win more. I mean, someone has to win, right?

“Excuse me,” the man who had been in front of me brushed past me, holding several tickets.

It was my turn and I stepped up to the counter.

“What can I do for you?” The lady behind the counter cocked her brow at me. I peered at her closely. She probably wasn’t more than ten years my senior, but her face was so overly made up that she looked clownish and old.

“I would like to buy some winning lottery tickets, please,” I looked down at the colorful card stock in the display case. Each week, Gwen would look up the scratch-off games at the Sunshine Lottery website to see which ones had remaining prizes with the best odds. She would tell whoever was shopping that week what tickets to buy. But I couldn’t remember what she’d said.

“Wouldn’t we all?” she groaned. “Now,” she added sharply, “do you want to tell me what tickets you want?”

Wow, she was kind of rude. I glanced at her nametag. ‘Verna Trout’ was spelled across it in big letters. And she sure looked kind of like a fish, with her big, red painted mouth and bulging blue eyes. She flashed me an impatient look. Maybe she was just having a bad day.

“I’m not sure.” I looked at the tickets again. We always bought two five dollar tickets, but... I glanced over at the deli counter. Gwen was studying the buy one get one free bin in front of it. She was too far off to call out to. And I sure as heck didn’t want to stand in line again.

“I’m trying to remember which scratch offs have prizes left.”

Verna pursed her lips. “That, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Hmmm…”

“These are the new games, though, so there should be plenty of prizes left.” She ran her finger along the glass on the case, pointing to the top row of tickets. “This is a good one,” she tapped on the glass over a green card. “It just came out last week. It has a huge jackpot.”

I looked at the cost stamped on the ticket in the upper corner. “Twenty-five dollars is too much. I can’t spend more than ten dollars.”

“Ok, then…this game came out yesterday and it’s been popular,” she pointed to a brightly colored ticket with gold dollar signs. “Match your numbers to the ones on the side and you win a prize. And this one just came in today. We put out the tickets just a little while ago. It’s exclusive to Foodies Market.” She pointed to a ticket imprinted with a handsome man baring his chiseled, muscular chest.

I peered closely at the ticket. “Wow, I have never seen a scratch-off ticket like that.” As I leaned in to study the prizes, a gruff voice called out from the back of the line.

“Make up your mind, lady—geez!”

Verna raised her brows. “So, do you know what you want yet? If you can’t decide, you can always get tickets later over there,” she pointed her finger. “They’re in machine next to the news rack.”

I glanced over to where she was pointing. There was a line there too. “No, that’s ok. Sorry I took so long. I’ll take one of those.” We usually bought two five dollar tickets—maybe it would change our luck to buy just one for ten dollars. I handed her the ten and tapped on the glass over the stack of tickets with the bare chested hunk. I wasn’t sure what the prize was, but with beefcake like that, it had to be good.

“Next in line,” she called out, barely looking at me as she took the money and handed over the ticket.

“Thanks!” I wasn’t going to let her rudeness bother me. I grinned as I looked at the ticket. Gwen would get a kick out of it. I walked up and down a couple of aisles and finally spotted her bending down in the bread section, reading the label on a package of pita bread.

“Hey girlie,” I called out.

“Why is it…” she asked as she stood up, holding her back, “that the healthy, good for you foods are low on the shelves, and the fattening stuff is at eye level? I’m sure I would buy more healthy stuff if I didn’t have to practically get down on the floor to get it.”

“I’m sure you would,” I said doubtfully as I glanced in the cart. Gwen had done quite a bit of damage during the short amount of time I’d been at the customer service counter. She had milk, cereal, lunch meat and canned soup in the cart, but there was also a jumbo sized box of donuts, several bags of chips, two boxes of crackers and a large family sized bag of mini candy bars. Like me, Gwen enjoyed her sweets, but unlike me, she allowed herself as much of them as she wanted. I knew I would blow up like a balloon if I ate like she did!

She picked up the box of chocolate coated donuts and waved them in the air. “We have the essentials. Yep, we are prepared for any snowstorm.”

I narrowed my eyes. “But uh, it doesn’t snow in Florida.” 

“I think I saw a flake once.”

I pursed my lips.

Gwen grinned. “Well…you never know. And just in case, we’re prepared.”

“Ok,” I shook my head. She was so funny. “I’m glad we got the jumbo sized box. Now I know we’re totally ready for the blizzard.” I waved the lottery ticket at her face. “And look what I got!”

Gwen’s mouth dropped open. “What the heck! You bought naked man scratch-off tickets? You were supposed to get the ‘Lucky Jumbo Cash’ ones.”

“Sorry, I forgot which ones to get. And I didn’t want to stand in line again. The people were rude. I figured this was a no brainer. If we don’t win, we still have the ticket to stare at.”

“You got that right,” Gwen eyeballed the ticket. “That is one hot dude!”

“Yeah, he is.” My eyes swept over the incredibly buff body of the man imprinted on the cardstock.

“So what’s the prize? How much can we win?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t read that part yet.”

She slowly read the top of the card out loud. “‘Scratch and Win Shifters—Lovebites Lottery’. Hmm, I’m not familiar with that one—must be new.”

“Yep, brand new today, so Verna Trout said.”

“Verna Trout?”

“The clerk lady…I read her name tag.”

“Ok, well let’s see what we can win. It’s probably on the back.” She took the card from me and flipped it over, reading it out loud. “Let’s see…it says ‘Game play ‘Scratch and Win Shifters: Lovebites Lottery’…get three of the same shifter symbols in a horizontal or vertical row; win that shifter. Get three heart symbols win your choice of lion, wolf, tiger or bear shifter. Get a 2X symbol win double the prize shown for that symbol.’”

“Win that shifter?” I repeated, shaking my head.

Her eyes widened and she stared at me. “What the hell kind of scratch-off ticket did you just buy, Libby?”