Stop for orange juice ends with woman winning jackpot in NC lottery scratch-off game
A container of orange juice just changed a family’s life in North Carolina.
Kelly Spahr was looking for some when she stopped at a Quality Mart gas station in Kernersville, and a state lottery ticket was also purchased as an afterthought.
That ticket was worth $250,000, N.C. Education Lottery officials said in a Nov. 7 news release.
“It’s a life-changing amount of money for us,” Spahr said in the release. “It really helps us out a lot. ... This just opened up some more doors for us.”
The ticket was in the holiday-themed $20 Merry Multiplier game, and Spahr’s motive for buying it might sound peculiar.
“The ticket has a folding part on it which is what sold me on it,” she said.
Spahr beat odds of 1-in-617,040 to win the top prize. She cashed in the ticket Nov. 5 and the money came to $178,756 after state and federal taxes, officials said.
That was also the first day Merry Multiplier tickets were offered, according to the lottery website. For $20, players get “a booklet of five scratch-off tickets,” and each has a second shot of winning in a Feb. 5 drawing, the lottery says.
Kernersville is about a 90-mile drive northeast of Charlotte.
This story was originally published November 7, 2024 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Stop for orange juice ends with woman winning jackpot in NC lottery scratch-off game."