Late-night email from lottery leaves NC man sleepless — and lucky for rest of his life
.jpg "“The first thing I did was tell myself I can make a plan for the future,” the man said.")
In the dark, waning hours of an October night, 59-year-old Christopher Johnson decided to check his email.
A message from the North Carolina Education Lottery was sitting in his inbox — an email that would change his life each year to come, lottery officials said in an Oct. 18 news release.
Johnson had won a huge prize in a $2 Quick Pick drawing and had the option to take home a lump sum of $390,000 or $25,000 each year for the rest of his life, according to lottery officials. Johnson chose the yearly option.
“The first thing I did was tell myself I can make a plan for the future,” Johnson told lottery officials, “and that was a good feeling.”
After he realized his win, Johnson said he wasn’t able to go back to bed right away, lottery officials said.
“I read it in the middle of the night and it woke me up for a while,” Johnson told them.
The Apex resident bought his ticket online and matched all five white balls in the Oct. 12 drawing, according to lottery officials. The odds of winning the $25,000 a year for life prize are one in 1,813,028.
“I just decided to give it a whirl,” he told lottery officials. “It was an exciting moment.”
Johnson took home $17,756 after taxes for his first year, according to lottery officials.
Apex is about 15 miles southwest of Raleigh.
