Lottery player checks ticket before dinner in NC – then loses appetite over big win
Michael Morgan and his wife sat down for dinner with two lottery scratch-off tickets in hand.
They wouldn’t be eating.
Morgan had bought the two $10 tickets earlier and gave one to his wife to scratch-off as he worked on the other, he told North Carolina Lottery officials in a Jan. 9 news release.
As the Benson man looked down at his ticket, his wife said, “you need to check this,” he recalled, then she handed him the ticket she had just scratched.
“I lost my appetite right then,” Morgan said. “I couldn’t eat.”
On her ticket was the $1 million prize in the Multiplier Mania game.
“We were both just tickled. We couldn’t believe it,” Morgan said.
Morgan, a truck driver, accepted the win on Jan. 8 as a one time lump sum of $600,000, and took home $429,003 after taxes, according to lottery officials.
He already had a plan for the money as he picked up his check, officials said.
“I’d like to buy my own 18-wheeler,” he said.
The Multiplier Mania lottery game debuted in June, lottery officials said, and four $1 million prizes remain.
Benson is about 30 miles south of Raleigh.
