RALEIGH – Mary Sinkler, a resident of Elizabethtown, plans to pay bills after winning the first $150,000 top prize in the new Hot Streak game.

Sinkler was visiting her daughter in Raleigh when she scratched off the $5 game’s top prize.

“I didn’t believe it,” Sinkler said. “I had to get my daughter to look at it before I thought it was real.”

After state and federal taxes were withheld, Sinkler received a check worth $102,001. She purchased her lucky ticket at the Poole Road BP on Poole Road in Raleigh.

As of Monday afternoon, three top prizes of $150,000 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, Bladen County education programs received more than $11 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.