Earlier this month, Pittsfield's Mike Levardi thought he won $250,000 from a lottery ticket he purchased in the eastern part of the state.

He was actually holding a prize worth twice that amount.

According to the State Lottery, Levardi initially didn't notice a second $5,000 prize with a "50X" multiplier for its "500,000 Frenzy" game, which launched on May 12. The game features $100, $500, $2,000, $5,000 and $500,000 prizes, with multiple ways to reach the top sum.

Levardi purchased the ticket at Winners Corner in North Andover. He claimed his $500,000 prize as a one-time payment. The store will get a $5,000 bonus for selling the ticket.

What will Levardi do with the money? According to WWLP, he plans to save for retirement and pay off his child's student loans. Levardi could not be immediately reached by The Eagle on Saturday.

However, Levardi won't get to keep the entire $500,000. That's because, in Massachusetts, lottery winnings are taxed at a rate of 5 percent in the year they are received ($25,000), and winnings over $5,000 are subject to a federal withholding rate of 24 percent ($120,000). That means Levardi will take home about $355,000 before any additional tax adjustments.

As of Saturday, only two $500,000 prizes have been claimed in the scratch ticket game, with 48 top prizes remaining. It boasts odds of 1 in 3.78 and has a second-chance promotion through which players can enter non-winning tickets for drawings offering five $50,000 prizes and ten $5,000 prizes.

Levardi's haul is the third-largest prize collected by a Berkshire resident this year. On May 4, Otis' Dylan Jacobs won $2,500 a week for life from a scratch ticket purchased at a Big Y Express in Westfield, but chose to receive a one-time payment of $2 million instead. The soon-to-be father said he was "grateful to have this opportunity to put us in the right direction and set us up for success.”

The second? It's Pittsfield's Jacinto Parducci Ramirez, who won $1 million from a lottery ticket purchased at the city's Big Y on West Street.