RALEIGH – For the second time this week, a lottery windfall has been awarded to a player from Granite Falls. On Wednesday morning, Robert McIntosh came to lottery headquarters in Raleigh to collect the $150,000 prize he won on an Aces High scratch-off ticket.

McIntosh, an occasional lottery player, said he’d been thinking about buying an Aces High ticket all morning on July 5. So he stopped in Morganton at the Antioch Food Mart on N.C. 18 where he bought one and took it out to his car to try his luck.

McIntosh scratched off his numbers first, followed by the play area from right to left. The second-to-last number matched one of his. When he revealed the $150,000 prize amount, McIntosh was stunned.

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I never thought this would happen to me,’” he recalled. “I was excited.”

McIntosh, a custodian, did not share immediate plans for his winnings, which totaled $102,001 after taxes. With his Aces High win, three top prizes of $150,000 remain to be claimed in the game.

McIntosh’s claim comes just two days after another Granite Falls winner was announced. Tony Summerlin won $100,000 playing the Ultimate Fan game, officially-licensed by NASCAR®. He purchased his winning ticket, worth $68,001 after taxes, at the PD Grocery & Deli on Sawmill School Road in Granite Falls.

Through June 30, 2011, Caldwell County education programs received more than $14.1 million in lottery funds. By law, lottery funds pay for teachers’ salaries in grades K-3, school construction, prekindergarten programs for at-risk four-year-olds, and need-based college scholarships and financial aid.

To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.45 billion for these initiatives statewide.