Retiree went to buy groceries, ended up winning $4 million in North Carolina lottery

A retired rest home employee spent her first full day as a millionaire on Election Day, after claiming a $4 million lottery win Monday at the North Carolina Education Lottery office in Raleigh.

Ruth Robinson says she bought the $20 Gold Rush ticket Saturday afternoon at a Short Stop convenience store on Fayetteville’s west side, according to a state news release. Fayetteville is about 65 miles south of Raleigh in Cumberland County.

“I was coming from the grocery store and I thought I’d get everything while I was out,” she said in the release. “I ran it (the ticket) up under the machine and the machine said you have to go to the lottery (office). ... I was numb.”

The odds of winning $4 million in the Gold Rush game are 1 in 1.6 million, according to lottery officials.

Robinson was given two choices: Get her money slowly at “$200,000 a year for 20 years,” or walk away with “a lump sum of $2.4 million,” state officials said.

She went with the lump sum, which whittled the winnings by half after federal and state taxes were collected. That left the “retired dietary manager” with $1,698,006, a release said.

Robinson says she intends “to pay off some bills and ‘just nibble’ on the rest” of the money, which has afforded her “a little peace of mind,” according to the news release.

The Gold Rush ticket was introduced in August, and winnings included three top prizes of $4 million, with a series of lesser prizes ranging from $20 to $100,000. One $4 million prize remains still to be won, officials say.

This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Retiree went to buy groceries, ended up winning $4 million in North Carolina lottery."