‘I won $100,’ NC lottery player says. But he hadn’t finished scratching his ticket
A man thought he won $100 in a North Carolina lottery game, but he hadn’t finished scratching his ticket.
It turns out, there were three more zeroes on that ticket, which was worth $100,000, the N.C. Education Lottery said Tuesday in a news release.
“It was flip out time,” Mark Hoti said, according to a Twitter post.
Hoti, who lives in Florida, met with good fortune during a trip to see family in Raleigh.
When he went to S N Food Mart on Capital Boulevard to buy items for a cookout, he decided to try his luck with some scratch-off games, according to the lottery’s news release. At first, Hoti said he hesitated to buy a ticket for the $300,000,000 Supreme Riches game, officials say.
“I was getting ready to walk away, but, I don’t know, for some reason I thought, ‘You know what, I’m up here, I’m on vacation, I’ll take it,’” Hoti told the N.C. Education Lottery.
And when he got to his sister’s house, his choice proved to be the right one. That’s where he decided to check if his Supreme Riches ticket was a prize winner.
“I scratched it off a little, and I said, ‘Oh, I won $100,’” Hoti said in the lottery’s news release.
But his sister noticed his work wasn’t done.
“She goes, ‘Wait a minute, you still have to scratch!’” Hoti said in the release. “And she scratched it a little more and that’s what revealed the other three zeros.”
After taxes, Hoti gets to bring $70,759 back home with him to Greenacres, Florida, roughly 10 miles southwest of West Palm Beach.
“I’m not 20 years old anymore, but I definitely felt like it that day,” Hoti told the lottery. “It was exciting to win that kind of money. It was kind of mind-blowing.”
Hoti, who works as a country club banquet manager, said he will likely spend the prize money “on a lot of sensible things,” including bills, according to officials.
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 5:04 PM with the headline "‘I won $100,’ NC lottery player says. But he hadn’t finished scratching his ticket."
