NC woman scratches off $1 million lottery ticket — and doesn’t realize it for days
A woman realized she won a $1 million prize days after she scratched off her lottery ticket, North Carolina officials say.
That’s because she put the lucky ticket in her glove box and “thought nothing of” it, the N.C. Education Lottery said Friday in a news release.
Tina Reffo’s good fortune started when she stopped at a Circle K in Raleigh, according to the news release. The convenience store is south of downtown on Fayetteville Road.
Reffo bought two lottery tickets but won enough money to pay for more, officials say.
“I didn’t think I’d won,” she said, according to the news release.
The tickets sat in her car for a week, even while she got it cleaned, the news release said.
Reffo eventually considered entering the tickets in a “second-chance drawing” and peeked at them again, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.
It turns out, one of the $10 tickets she scratched off a week earlier was a big prize winner, the lottery says.
She was in “disbelief” that she won a jackpot in the game, called MGM Resorts $25,000,000 Casino Cash, according to officials.
The lottery says Reffo chose to take a lump sum payment and got $424,503 after taxes.
“Who would’ve ever thought my name would be on a big check like that,” the Raleigh woman said, according to the lottery.
She hopes to spend the money on a new house, officials say.
Someone else could have a similar surprise soon.
The lottery says the MGM game has another $1 million prize left to award.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 2:53 PM with the headline "NC woman scratches off $1 million lottery ticket — and doesn’t realize it for days."
