It was an Independence Day to remember for a pair of Carolina Pick 4 players who won big over the holiday weekend. Gemekia Mackey of Greenville said he was “happy and shocked” to win $120,000 in the evening Pick 4 drawing on July 4. He played the 1-6-1-0 combination on 24 tickets, winning $5,000 on each.

Just a day before Mackey’s big win, another Pick 4 player won $90,000 in a single drawing. Elmer R. Ebron, Jr. of Durham said he was “very excited” when he realized he had won. All 18 of his tickets matched the winning number combination of 1-0-8-4 exactly to win $5,000 prizes in the evening drawing on July 3.

Besides the unusually large prize amounts, Mackey and Ebron’s wins have some other things in common. Both players chose their own winning numbers and both claimed big Pick 4 prizes earlier this year. In June, Mackey claimed a $20,000 prize and Ebron claimed two tickets worth $5,000 in May. Since the game began in 2009, Carolina Pick 4 players have won more than $139.7 million in prizes.