RALEIGH – Kendale Easterling, a janitor from Charlotte, said after winning $200,000 playing the new Extreme Green instant game that he may use his winnings to start his own cleaning service and to take his three kids on a Disney cruise.

Easterling discovered his good luck Friday night at his home after scratching the first of six instant tickets he had purchased at the Circle K located on North Graham Street in Charlotte. He said he had a hard time believing what he was seeing when one of the winning numbers, “23,” on the ticket matched one of his numbers, “23,” with the game’s $200,000 top prize.

“I looked and saw a ‘2 and a ‘3’ and I thought, ‘This can’t be real,’” Easterling said Monday. “Then, when I looked at it again, I said, ‘This is real.’ I never thought this would happen. Not a top prize.”

Easterling is the first person to claim the top prize in the game and received $136,001 after taxes were withheld. As of Tuesday, five more top prizes remain to be claimed in the game

Since the lottery began through June 30 of this year, Mecklenburg County education programs received more than $167.3 million in lottery funds. By law, those funds pay for teachers’ salaries, school construction, prekindergarten programs, and college scholarships and financial aid based on need. Players in Mecklenburg County have won more than $215.5 million in prizes since the lottery’s inception.

To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.1 billion for these initiatives statewide.