Man spends $1 on NC lotto ticket at gas station near Raleigh, wins life-changing cash
A Raleigh man’s decision to buy a lottery ticket at a gas station in Youngsville paid off big days before Christmas, according to the North Carolina Education Lottery.
Reginald Epps spent $1 on a Cash 5 ticket at the Rose Mart gas station on N.C. 96, and it matched all five balls in the Saturday, Dec. 21, drawing.
The jackpot was a whopping $633,202, lottery officials said in a Dec. 23 news release.
“The odds of matching numbers on all five balls are 1 in 962,598,” lottery officials said.
Epps picked up his money on Monday, Dec. 23, and the prize came to $452,741 after federal and state withholdings, officials said. (That’s $180,461 in taxes.)
Details of how he intended to spend the pre-Christmas windfall were not released.
Carolina Cash 5 is a “rolling jackpot game,” which means the top prize keeps growing until somebody matches five numbers chosen from 1 to 43. Players have the option of letting “the terminal randomly pick numbers,” officials say.
Epps’ winning numbers: 8, 11, 25, 32, 42. Lottery officials didn’t reveal whether he picked them or if the terminal did it.
Carolina Cash 5 players also have the option of buying tickets on the N.C. Lottery Official Mobile App.
Youngsville is about a 25-mile drive northeast from Raleigh.