RALEIGH – Carolina Cash 5 players in North Carolina, especially those in the Charlotte area, should check any tickets they have to see if they are the winner of an unclaimed $272,453 jackpot.

The winning ticket was purchased for the April 4 drawing and is scheduled to expire on Tuesday, Oct. 1. The ticket, sold at the Shell Food Mart at 2736 Freedom Drive in Charlotte, matched all five balls in the drawing, beating odds of 1 in 575,757.The winning numbers for the drawing were: 2 - 9 - 13 - 28 - 34.

“A Cash 5 player who got a ticket at this store had amazing luck,” said Alice Garland, executive director of the N.C. Education Lottery. “So our hope is to award this big prize to the person who won it before the deadline expires.”

To raise awareness of the expiring ticket, the lottery will place a banner inside the store on Thursday afternoon. Draw game tickets expire when they go unclaimed for 180 days after a drawing. By law, when that happens, half of the money goes toward prizes awarded to future winners and the other half goes to benefit education.

As of June 2013, the lottery has raised more than $2.9 billion to support education programs. 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 $210.9 million in lottery dollars have made a difference in Mecklenburg County, go to the Where the Money Goes webpage at http://www.nc-educationlottery.org/beneficiary.aspx.