RALEIGH – The $1 million prize in the N.C. Education Lottery’s exclusive, one-time drawing on Oct. 24 goes to a Sampson County textile worker, William McCrea, who kept the ticket on his dresser at home and then in his truck before discovering 12 days afterward he had the lucky ticket.

The Education Lottery offered the special $1 million prize to kick off the new MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB™ lottery game by ensuring someone would win $1 million in the first drawing. McCrea heard about the drawing and bought two of the $5 tickets at the Wilco on N.C. 41 South in Wallace. After the drawing, his wife checked the tickets, didn’t see that one was a winner, but left them on the dresser for McCrea to check later.

Then, one day at work, a co-worker told McCrea that someone who lived in the area had bought the winning ticket. McCrea found the tickets and put them in his truck. A couple of days later, while getting gas, he used a lottery ticket checker and discovered one was a winner. The store clerk said to take the ticket to a lottery office to claim his prize.

McCrea, a worker for 20 years at Guilford Mills in Kenansville, said just days before he and his wife had talked about the holidays and he wondered if he should work overtime to earn money for gifts. “And I had $1 million sitting right there and didn’t even know it,” he said.

After the required federal and state taxes were withheld, McCrea received a check for $692,001. He said he had no specific plans yet for his winnings, but does enjoy traveling with family. “What everybody else says, pay bills off,” McCrea said. “I’m no different than anyone else. I have bills. I’ll pay my bills and live comfortably.”

The new lottery game offer three ways for someone to win $1 million or more. Players can:

• Win the Top Prize, which begins at $15 million and can rise to $25 million.
• Become one of the many, randomly-selected $1 million winners when another player wins the Top Prize.
• Register a ticket online to earn entries into a drawing for a chance to appear on a nationally televised game show. The show starts in February and will have more than $2.5 million in prize money on each episode.

Ticket sales in the new MONOPOLY MILLIOINAIRES’ CLUB game will help the Education Lottery reach its goal of raising half a billion dollars this year for education. Net proceeds will be used to help pay salaries of teachers and teacher assistants, for pre-kindergarten programs for at-risk four-year-olds, school construction and repair, and need-based college scholarships and financial aid.

For details on how more than $24 million in lottery funds have made a difference in Sampson County, click on the “Where the Money Goes” tab on the lottery’s website.