‘Breathe, Penny, breathe!‘ NC man calms tearful wife after her big lottery win.
A North Carolina man calmed his tearful wife who choked up after scratching off a $1 million jackpot, state lottery officials said Tuesday.
“My eyes teared up,” Penny Edwards told officials when she claimed her prize at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Monday. “I must have been holding my breath because my husband said, ‘Breathe, Penny, breathe!’”
The Wingate couple “love playing the lottery together,” Penny Edwards said, according to a lottery news release on Tuesday. She scratches off the odd-numbered tickets and her husband the even-numbered ones, she said.
On Saturday night, they bought two $30 Millionaire Maker tickets at the Xpress Mart on U.S. 74 East in Wingate and scratched them off in their car outside the Union County store, according to the lottery.
“We had 14 and 15, so I scratched the 15 and it was boom,” Penny Edwards said.
She beat odds of 1 in 2.95 million, according to the Millionaire Maker game website.
Edwards had to choose between an annuity of $50,000 a year over 20 years or a $600,000 lump sum. She chose the lump sum, netting $424,509 after taxes, officials said.
“It’s going to come in real handy,” Penny Edwards said. “It is paying off bills and saving for retirement.”
Edwards is the 18th person to win one of the 30 $1 million prizes in the game, officials said.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 12:29 PM with the headline "‘Breathe, Penny, breathe!‘ NC man calms tearful wife after her big lottery win.."