Do billboards work? One for Powerball did for this North Carolina bride-to-be.
A North Carolina bride-to-be hit a Powerball prize after a billboard reminded her to buy a ticket in the game, N.C. lottery officials said Tuesday.
“Mom always used to say, ‘If you don’t play, you can’t win,’” Charlottean Haley Dugger said when she claimed her $250,000 prize at lottery headquarters in Raleigh Monday, according to a lottery news release.
The winner had been a mystery since early June, when the lottery said someone had won the prize.
Dugger’s $3 Power Play ticket matched four white balls and the red Powerball to win $50,000 in the June 7 drawing, officials said. She bought the ticket on the lottery’s website, NCLottery.com, and beat odds of 1 in 913,129.
Her win rose to $250,000 when the 5X Power Play multiplier hit, according to the Powerball game page on NCLottery.com.
The odds of the 5X Power Play multiplier hitting after matching four white balls and the Powerball are 1 in 21.5.
“My dad recommended that I should do the multiplier,” Dugger said. “I’m glad I listened to his advice.”
After taxes, she took home $178,146, according to the lottery.
Dugger is getting married in November, and “we can definitely take a bigger honeymoon than originally planned” in Greece and Croatia, she said.
Dugger said she immediately stepped outside her office and called her fiancée when she saw the email notification while at work.
“After that, I had to go to a meeting at work and act normal,” she said.
This story was originally published June 20, 2023 at 2:57 PM with the headline "Do billboards work? One for Powerball did for this North Carolina bride-to-be.."