Gaston County woman intends to give away a lot of her $2 million Powerball prize

The Gaston County Powerball player who won $2 million has been identified as Pegi Campbell of Cramerton and she has an unusual plan for her money, according to the North Carolina Education Lottery.

Campbell bought her ticket Dec. 13 at the Food Lion on South New Hope Road in Gastonia, and beat odds of 1 in 11.6 million to match all five white balls in the Dec. 14 drawing.

It was a $3 Power Play ticket, which meant any prize would be instantly doubled.

“It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing to buy it,” Campbell said in a news release. “I will make sure it gets used for good. We can help a lot of people with this.”

Campbell’s plan is to share her winnings with local charities, including a domestic violence shelter in her region, lottery officials said.

She claimed her prize on Monday, Jan. 5, at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, and the cash came to $1,440,201 after federal and state tax withholdings, officials said.

The grand prize in December reached $1.8 billion – the second largest in Powerball history – and the winner in the Dec. 24 drawing has yet to be identified. The winning ticket was sold at a Murphy USA convenience store in Cabot, Arkansas, Powerball officials said.

The winner will have a choice of “an annuitized prize of $1.817 billion or a lump sum payout of $834.9 million, after taxes.

Cramerton is about a 15-mile drive west from uptown Charlotte.

This story was originally published January 6, 2026 at 1:55 PM with the headline "Gaston County woman intends to give away a lot of her $2 million Powerball prize."