Cook thought someone else won lottery prize. Then he checked his NC ticket and ‘froze’
A cook thought someone else won big in the North Carolina lottery — then he checked his ticket.
Shaquille Johnson said he had to do a double take when he learned the ticket matched enough numbers to score the $421,434 prize.
“My heart was beating so fast,” Johnson told the N.C. Education Lottery. “I just froze.”
Johnson hit the jackpot after a trip to a Short Stop convenience store in Fayetteville, roughly 60 miles south of Raleigh. While there, he decided to try his luck on the Cash 5 game after realizing how much money he could win, officials wrote in a May 2 news release.
“I like to play when the jackpot gets high,” Johnson said.
When Johnson got home May 1, he said he checked the results of the lottery’s drawing and saw the jackpot amount had reset. Though he figured he hadn’t won, he took a look at his Cash 5 ticket and “was in total shock.”
It turns out, the ticket Johnson bought for $1 was worth much more. It beat 1-in-962,598 odds to score the jackpot prize, officials said.
Johnson, a 27-year-old Fayetteville resident, kept $300,272 after taxes. He said he has plans to put his extra cash toward a house and a car.
It’s not the first time a cook had a “dash of luck” in the North Carolina lottery. In recent years, one winning cook planned to “bless others” with her prize money, while another had to look at her ticket five times for her prize to register, McClatchy News reported.
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This story was originally published May 3, 2023 at 8:54 AM with the headline "Cook thought someone else won lottery prize. Then he checked his NC ticket and ‘froze’."
