TOLEDO – Jennifer Ochoa is a waitress, and she says she likes getting things like Toledo Mud Hens tickets as a tip. Her favorite tip paid off in a big way more than a year after she got it.

The ticket, an Ohio Lottery $5 Deal or No Deal instant, was purchased back in Dec. 2007 and left as a tip by one of Ochoa’s customers. The ticket revealed that she won an immediate $1,000 and entry into a drawing for the game’s top prize of $100,000. That drawing came last week, and Ochoa was the winner.

Lottery officials didn’t tell her she was the winner, though, until she showed up at the Lottery’s Toledo Regional Office to sign some paperwork. At that time, she was presented with an oversized $100,000 check.

A note about how TPD works: Ohio Lottery instant tickets of $5 or more have the TPD feature. If the winning combination on an instant ticket lists “TPD” as the prize, the winner receives an instant cash prize and automatic entry into a drawing for the top prize offered in that game. The TPD drawing comes after the close of the game, which sometimes means that the ticket was purchased a year or so before the drawing actually occurs.

Since 1974, the Ohio Lottery had raised more than $16.1 billion to support K-12 education in Ohio’s schools. The Lottery’s fiscal year 2008 transfer to the Lottery Profits Education Fund was $672.2 million.