Driver getting gas randomly buys first NC lottery ticket he sees — and wins big prize
.png "Bernard Phelps, who lives in the Duplin County town of Magnolia, got the ticket at the Tiger Mart on N.C. 24 in Warsaw.")
A driver threw caution to the wind and bought the first lottery ticket he saw while getting gas at a North Carolina convenience store, state lottery officials say.
It was a life-changing decision.
The ticket was a pricey $50, but it ended up being worth $100,000, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.
“I thought I was seeing things,” Bernard Phelps said in a May 16 news release. “That was just the first ticket I looked at.”
His win beat odds of 1 in 813,895.5 in the $10 million Spectacular, a scratch-off game with prizes ranging from $50 to $10 million. Odds of winning a $10 million prize are 1 in 3,255,582.
Phelps, who lives in the Duplin County town of Magnolia, got the ticket at the Tiger Mart in Warsaw, about a 70-mile drive southeast from Raleigh.
His winnings came to $71,514 after federal and state taxes, officials said.
As for what comes next, Phelps didn’t have specific plans, but said he intended to “make sure it gets spent wisely.”
This story was originally published May 17, 2024 at 1:07 PM with the headline "Driver getting gas randomly buys first NC lottery ticket he sees — and wins big prize."