Driver over 2,400 miles from home buys NC lottery ticket and wins six-figure prize

The odds of a guy visiting from Montana winning in the North Carolina lottery seem astronomical, but it happened when a driver stopped to get gas 2,435-miles from home.

Brian Kuhn of Victor, Montana, bought a $30 Black Titanium ticket while filling up at the Wake Cross Roads Express on Forestville Road in Raleigh, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.

Scratching off the dollar signs revealed it was worth $100,000, but he admits being initially confused over the amount.

“I thought I won $10,000 at first,” Kuhn said in a March 6 news release. “I’ve never won anything like this before. .. It’s still sinking in.”

Kuhn says he is in North Carolina working a contract job, and it was on a whim that he added a lottery ticket to his purchase Wednesday, March 5. “I figured I would give it a try,” he said in the release.

He claimed the prize the same day at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, and it came to $71,758 after state and federal tax withholdings, officials said.

Kuhn told lottery officials he’ll use the money “to help out his family.”

The odds of winning $100,000 in Black Titanium are 1 in 744,433.13, and it’s actually a second-level prize in the game. The jackpot is $4 million and the odds of winning it are 1 in 1,985,155.

This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Driver over 2,400 miles from home buys NC lottery ticket and wins six-figure prize."