Using same lottery numbers for 6 years finally pays for NC substitute teacher

Call it stubborn or call it determined, but a North Carolina substitute teacher just won a lottery jackpot after playing the same numbers for six years.

Barbara Munford, of Hope Mills, hit it big in Nov. 3 Cash 5 drawing, using the seemingly random series: 6, 9, 19, 25 and 32.

Munford didn’t reveal whether the numbers were special in any way, but they beat odds of 1 in 962,598 to win the jackpot prize of $154,168 , the N.C. Education Lottery said in a Nov. 5 news release.

“My sister convinced me to keep playing those same numbers,” Munford told lottery officials. “She told me I was going to win one day.”

Munford, a grandmother of four, said she checked the ticket just after midnight and “became emotional,” officials said.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god that’s me, that’s me, I won,’” she recalled. “I was in the living room crying.”

Munford claimed her prize Tuesday, Nov. 4, at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, and the cash came to $110,616 after the required state and federal tax withholdings. “She plans to use her winnings to pay bills,” lottery officials said.

The $1 ticket was purchased at the Lucky Stop on Legion Road in Hope Mills, about a 75-mile drive southwest from Raleigh.

Cash Five has a progressive jackpot that grows until someone guesses the right sequence of five numbers, from 1 to 43.

This story was originally published November 7, 2025 at 9:56 AM with the headline "Using same lottery numbers for 6 years finally pays for NC substitute teacher."