Woman wanted to buy one NC lottery ticket, but got two — and won the entire jackpot

A mix up that resulted in a North Carolina woman buying two lottery tickets ended up winning her the entire $305,046 jackpot in the Carolina Cash 5 game, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.

Susan Gray of Statesville says that magic numbers on both two tickets were the same — her birth date, lottery officials said in a news release.

“Those are numbers I’ve been using for years,” Gray said in the release. “It was really an accident that I played both. I was really shocked. I couldn’t believe it.”

Her win came in the Saturday drawing and she claimed the prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, officials said.

Federal and state taxes took almost $100,000, but Gray still managed to walk out with $215,826, official said.

Gray beat odds of 1 in 962,598 to win the jackpot, according to the lottery’s website.

She bought the tickets at the Kangaroo Express convenience store on Safriet Road in Statesville, about 40 miles north of Charlotte.

Carolina Cash 5 tickets are $1, so the mix up was not a costly one. Some state lottery games have tickets that cost as much as $30, according to the lottery’s website.

Details of how Gray intends to spend her money were not provided.

This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 12:12 PM with the headline "Woman wanted to buy one NC lottery ticket, but got two — and won the entire jackpot."