RALEIGH – Margaret Cleveland of Concord is having a lucky streak playing the lottery’s instant scratch-off games, claiming wins of $400, $1,000 and $100,000 since the start of July.

Cleveland, a retired corporate finance controller, claimed the $100,000 prize she won on her Black Onyx 7’s ticket on Wednesday afternoon. She said the lucky ticket sat in a drawer untouched for over two weeks before she decided to take it out and scratch it.

“I play the lottery for entertainment,” Cleveland said. “What I like to do is buy them and put them in a drawer in my house. Whenever I get bored on a Sunday or Monday night, I’ll take out a few and see what I’ve got. When I scratched off this one, I turned it over and signed the back of it right away to make sure no one else could claim it. It was hard to believe, that’s for sure.”

Cleveland plans to use her winnings, worth $68,001 after taxes were withheld, to help out a relative, give to some of her favorite charities and buy a new set of golf clubs. She purchased her lucky ticket at the Harris Teeter on George W. Liles Parkway in Concord.

Cleveland is the first to win the top prize in the Black Onyx 7’s game. As of Thursday morning, four more $100,000 top prizes are available to be claimed in the game.

Since the lottery began through June 30, 2012, Cabarrus County education programs received more than $49.7 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 $2.9 billion for these initiatives statewide.