Driver getting gas randomly buys first NC lottery ticket he sees — and wins big prize
.png "Bernard Phelps, who lives in the Duplin County town of Magnolia, got the ticket at the Tiger Mart on N.C. 24 in Warsaw.")
A driver threw caution to the wind and bought the first lottery ticket he saw while getting gas at a North Carolina convenience store, state lottery officials say.
It was a life-changing decision.
The ticket was a pricey $50, but it ended up being worth $100,000, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.
“I thought I was seeing things,” Bernard Phelps said in a May 16 news release. “That was just the first ticket I looked at.”
His win beat odds of 1 in 813,895.5 in the $10 million Spectacular, a scratch-off game with prizes ranging from $50 to $10 million. Odds of winning a $10 million prize are 1 in 3,255,582.
Phelps, who lives in the Duplin County town of Magnolia, got the ticket at the Tiger Mart in Warsaw, about a 70-mile drive southeast from Raleigh.
His winnings came to $71,514 after federal and state taxes, officials said.
As for what comes next, Phelps didn’t have specific plans, but said he intended to “make sure it gets spent wisely.”