Stunned NC lottery winner stared at ticket ‘for about a half hour’ before it sank in

Lottery winners often confess to screaming and dancing at news they just got rich, but one woman in western North Carolina had a more subtle reaction.

Valerie Logiudice says she was sitting around her home in Horse Shoe Tuesday night, when she pulled out her N.C. Education lottery ticket and saw the numbers lined up. (Horse Shoe is a community of about 2,400 people in Henderson County.)

“I looked at that ticket for about a half hour,” she said in a news release.

Any doubts she was mistaken were dispelled Wednesday, when lottery officials handed Logiudice a big check at their Raleigh headquarters.

She had paid $5 for a 20X The Cash ticket at Mr. Pete’s Market in Etowah, and it was worth $137,141, officials said.

Minus federal and state taxes, the prize came to $97,028, officials said.

Loguidice seemed to have an equally subdued reaction when asked how she would spend her money. It will go “to pay off bills,” she told lottery officials.

Winning a jackpot in the game means she beat odds of 1 in 240,000, according to the lottery web site.

The Fast Play 20X The Cash game has a “rolling, progressive jackpot increases with every ticket sold until it is won,” the lottery says. Winners with a $5 ticket get “50% of the jackpot amount,” according to the game.

This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Stunned NC lottery winner stared at ticket ‘for about a half hour’ before it sank in."