Birthday gift inspired NC man to play lottery. Then came a life-changing prize
A birthday gift inspired a man to play the lottery — then he scored a $1 million prize.
“A couple weeks ago I got some tickets for my birthday,” Kyle Clouser told the North Carolina Education Lottery. “I never really play the lottery, but after that I decided to try.”
When Clouser bought his own ticket, he “wanted to go big,” lottery officials wrote in a June 9 news release. He spent $50 to try his luck on the $10 Million Spectacular scratch-off game.
Clouser’s life-changing ticket came from a Han-Dee Hugo’s convenience store in Bolivia, near the coast and a roughly 20-mile drive southwest from Wilmington. At first, he thought he had broken even with a $50 prize.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw how much it really was,” the lucky winner told officials. “It was wild.”
Clouser, who is from Bolivia, took his prize as a lump sum of $600,000. He kept $430,514 after taxes and hopes to spend the money on his loved ones.
“We have a 3-year-old so this will help make things a little easier for us as a family,” Clouser said.
It’s not the first time a birthday present led to a big lottery win. Another North Carolina man got richer when his daughter bought him a ticket worth $100,000, McClatchy News reported in April.
