Tina Sykes, a nurse from Grantsboro in Pamlico County, said she never considered herself lucky until this weekend when she discovered her 20X The Cash instant ticket was worth $200,000.

“This can’t be right,” Sykes said she told herself. “I felt like I was looking at it wrong, that it can’t be what it says. I’ve never been one of those lucky people who win things.”

But Sykes was a lucky winner of one of the six top prizes of $200,000 in the instant game. She purchased the ticket at the Wilco on N.C. 55 East in Grantsboro. Four of the top prizes remain to be claimed as of Tuesday morning. 20X The Cash, a $5 game, is part of the lottery’s new multiplier-themed suite of instant scratch-off games that went on sale Aug. 6. The other three games are 50X The Cash, 10X The Cash and 5X The Cash.

Sykes said she had no definite plans for the winnings. She received a check for $136,001 after federal and state taxes were withheld. She said she will probably “share a fair amount of it” with her family but she added she may replace her Honda Civic since it has traveled more than 260,000 miles and has a broken air conditioner

As of June 2013, the lottery has raised more than $2.9 billion to support education programs. The lottery completed its seventh straight year of record sales and record earnings for the state on June 30, recording a 5.8 percent increase in sales and an estimated 4 percent increase in earnings. Lottery dollars support teachers’ salaries in grades K-3, school construction and repair projects, prekindergarten programs for at-risk four-year-olds, college scholarships and financial aid based on need and digital learning initiatives.

To see how more than $2.6 million in lottery dollars have made a difference in Pamlico County, go to the Where the Money Goes webpage at http://www.nc-educationlottery.org/beneficiary.aspx.