RALEIGH – Clayton B. Cameron, Jr., a retired animal control officer from Southport, had a taste for home cooking and lottery tickets Monday evening, and his indulgence quickly paid off with a $100,000 win in the MONOPOLY scratch-off game.

“I was sitting on the porch yesterday,” Cameron recalled at lottery headquarters. “I decided to get something to eat, and I decided to get two scratch-offs and scratch them off while chowing down.”

Cameron bought the $5 MONOPOLY tickets at the Doodles convenience store on Country Club Drive in Oak Island and then placed an order for roast beef and potatoes at a local restaurant. He sat in his van and scratched off the winning ticket while waiting for his meal.

“I was shocked,” said Cameron. “I looked at it a thousand times and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I was scared to leave it in the van. I was scared to take it in the restaurant.”

In the end, Cameron decided to eat in the diner before driving three hours to Sanford to share the news with his daughter, Christine. The two collected his check, worth $68,001 after taxes were withheld, Tuesday morning.

Cameron plans to use the prize money to pay off his van and to take a trip to the mountains. He said he’ll give some money to his three daughters and “bank the rest.” “Boy, this is a dream come true!” he said.

As of Tuesday morning, three $100,000 top prizes remain to be claimed in the $5 MONOPOLY game. Cameron is the second winner to collect a top prize in a MONOPOLY scratch-off game this week. On Monday, Katie Wheless, a waitress from Bunn, won $1 million in the $10 MONOPOLY game.

The $5 MONOPOLY game is part of a suite of games that launched on March 26. All four games, priced at $1, $2, $5 and $10, are eligible for monthly second-chance drawings featuring cash prizes up to $10,000. Every entry is also automatically applied towards a MONOPOLY Super Entry. The MONOPOLY Super Entry Drawing will feature a $1 million prize. A “super entry” consists of a non-winning ticket entry from each of the four new MONOPOLY games. On-line entry forms and additional information can be found at www.lucke-zone.com.
Since the lottery began through June 30, 2012, Brunswick County education programs received more than $19.9 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 college scholarships and financial aid based on need.

To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.8 billion for these initiatives statewide.