RALEIGH – Cosme Padilla-Lanza, a construction supervisor from Rose Hill, plans to use the $750,000 he won playing the Jumbo Bucks game to help his immediate family. His was the largest scratch-off prize ever won in Duplin County.

He scratched off his lucky $10 ticket while sitting in his car outside the Scotchman on Sycamore Street in Rose Hill, where he made his winning purchase.

“I saw that I had matched the number but I thought I had maybe won five hundred dollars,” Padilla-Lanza said. “It’s unbelievable. First we’re going to the bank, but then we’re going to celebrate.”

After taxes were withheld, he received a check for $510,003. As of Monday afternoon, four top prizes of $750,000 and many other prizes remain unclaimed in the game.

Ticket sales for games such as instant scratch-offs have enabled the lottery to raise more than $2.6 billion for education initiatives statewide. Since the lottery began through June 30, 2012, Duplin County education programs received more than $15.4 million in lottery funds. By law, those 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.