RALEIGH – James Little, a retiree from Greensboro, plans to use the $150,000 he won playing the lottery to replace the roof on his home and pay off his auto loan. He scratched off the top prize on his $5 Mega Money Multiplier ticket shortly after purchasing it at the Fairway One Stop on South Elm Street in Greensboro.

“I thought I had won maybe twenty dollars but I kept scratching,” Little said. “I looked at it again and again. The clerk scanned it and said I had to claim the ticket at the lottery office, so I signed the back of it right away. ”

Little said he plans to save the rest of his winnings, which amounted to $102,001 after taxes were withheld.

“It’s hitting me now,” said Little. “Not bad for a day’s work.”

As of Friday afternoon, two $150,000 top prizes remain to be claimed in the Mega Money Multiplier game.

Ticket sales have enabled the lottery to raise more than $2.8 billion for education initiatives statewide. Since the lottery began through June 30, 2012, Guilford County education programs received more than $127.6 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.