Couple’s lucky streak continues with a second prize in North Carolina lottery

Gloria Walls and Gary Daniel thought they “hit the big time” two months ago when they split a $500 prize in the North Carolina Education Lottery.

Then they won again, only this week the prize was 2,000 times bigger, according to a lottery news release.

The South Carolina couple went to claim their $1 million this week in Raleigh, and found themselves deciding whether to take a lump sum of $600,000 or 20 payments of $50,000 a year.

They went with the lump sum, which came to $212,251 each, after federal and state taxes, lottery officials said.

Walls and Daniel, who live in the York County town of Clover, described their reaction as being closer to “shock” than the euphoria one might imagine.

“When I scratched off that (winning) number ... I couldn’t speak and the tears came down,” Walls said in the release. “We can’t believe that we did it.”

Their $10 Jumbo Bucks ticket came from a Harris Teeter in neighboring Gaston County, North Carolina, officials said.

Walls and Daniel did not volunteer details about how they intend to spend their money — or if they will keep testing their luck.

Jumbo Bucks has seven “top prizes” of $1 million left to be won. However, the odds are a steep 1 in 1,050,000, the lottery web site reports.

This story was originally published April 16, 2021 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Couple’s lucky streak continues with a second prize in North Carolina lottery."