RALEIGH – Lynette Brice, an office manager from Greensboro, said that winning Wednesday’s $261,721 Carolina Cash 5 jackpot means she and her husband can save for retirement and help provide for their five grandchildren’s college education.

Brice, a regular Carolina Cash 5 player, said she likes the game’s odds of winning the jackpot. For every drawing, she buys a $5 ticket, letting the computer Quick Pick five sets of numbers at random.

Brice’s morning routine is to visit the lottery’s website and check to see if she won anything in the drawing the night before. Three times before, she has matched four out of five numbers to win prizes. Wednesday night, she was the only player to beat the odds of 1 in 575,757 to win the jackpot.

“I started beating on the desk and said ‘I don’t believe it,’” she recalled. She told her husband, “I just hit the Cash 5!”

“You’re kidding me,” he said. “How many winners hit?”

“One,” she replied. “And it’s me!”

Brice purchased her lucky ticket, worth $177,970 after taxes, at the Food Lion on Lawndale Drive in Greensboro.

Each time a Cash 5 player makes a $5 purchase for five sets of numbers, a Bonus Bucks entry slip is generated that offers an extra chance to win as much as $50,000. The next Bonus Bucks drawing will be held on Oct. 2 with an entry deadline of Sept. 18. More information about the drawings is available on the lottery’s website.

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, college scholarships and financial aid based on need, and digital learning. The N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.9 billion for these initiatives statewide.