Workers see lottery player ‘shaking and crying’ after he scratches ticket at NC store
Any place is a good place to win the lottery, and it happened for Jerry Wilson inside a Raleigh, North Carolina, convenience store.
It was Monday, Feb. 10, and Wilson made the realization while scratching off a $10 Jumbo Bucks ticket at Han-Dee Hugo’s at the intersection of S. New Hope and Poole roads, the N.C. Education Lottery said in a news release.
Store staff were watching and instantly knew something big had happened, he recalled.
“They could just see it on my face. They were so happy for me,” Wilson said in the release. “This feeling just came over my body and I started shaking and crying.”
He won a jackpot prize of $1 million. Odds of winning a jackpot in the game are 1 in 1,482,257.14.
Wilson, who lives in the Clayton area of Johnston County, showed up at lottery headquarters in Raleigh the same day to get his money, officials said.
“He had a decision to make. He could choose to receive his prize as an annuity of $50,000 over 20 years or a lump sum of $600,000,” lottery officials said.
Wilson went for the lump of cash, which came to $430,000 after state and federal withholdings, officials said.
He told lottery officials he’ll use it “to pay off his house.”
“I have always dreamed of this,” he said in the release. “This is the happiest day of my life.”
.
This story was originally published February 11, 2025 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Workers see lottery player ‘shaking and crying’ after he scratches ticket at NC store."