Retiree buys NC lottery ticket hoping for $500,000 prize and ends up winning $642,767

A North Carolina man bought a $1 lottery ticket for a $500,000 prize and awoke the next morning to find out he’d not only won but the jackpot had risen to $642,767, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.

Retiree Charlie Bennett of New Bern learned the news via a state lottery app while getting ready to celebrate his mother’s birthday, officials said in a news release.

Bennett beat one in a million odds to win the jackpot, or technically 1-in-962,598 odds, according to the lottery’s web site. His home in New Bern is about 120 miles southeast of Raleigh, near the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

“I feel blessed,” Bennett said in the release. “I’ll probably take care of some bills and give a little bit to some of the family.”

The obvious question — what he got his mom for her birthday — was not addressed in the release.

Bennett won the money with a Cash 5 ticket, and he says he purposely waited to buy it until after the prize exceeded $500,000, according to a news release. The game has a “rolling jackpot” that starts at $100,000 and keeps going up until someone wins, the state says.

He bought the ticket Dec. 28 at the Super Stop on Neuse Boulevard in New Bern, and he let the machine randomly pick the numbers, officials said.

Bennett picked up his winnings Friday at the lottery office in Raleigh and took home $454,760 after federal and state taxes were taken out, officials said.