A family trip over the weekend to the Outer Banks began with a $150,000 win for one of the members, Brittany Brickhouse of Elizabeth City.

As the family left town, they stopped at the Eagle Mart on Weeksville Road. Brickhouse,18, went into the store with her uncle. Her uncle bought two $5 tickets in the Casino Riches game. So Brickhouse decided to try her luck with the game too.

Brickhouse said as she was scratching her ticket her uncle announced he had won $50. Just after that, she said, she saw a number she had matched, No. 7, reveal a $150,000 prize.

“Can this be real?’ she said she asked herself. “Is this true?”

Reality set in Monday as Brickhouse made a second family trip with her mother, uncle and brother to lottery headquarters to claim her prize. After taxes were withheld, she received a check for $103,876.

She said she planned to share the winnings with her family; take family members on trips, possibly to Disney World and Niagara Falls; and put aside some for savings.

The Casino Riches game went on sale on Sept. 1 with four top prizes of $150,000. Brickhouse was the first to claim the game’s top prize. As of Tuesday, three more $150,000 prizes remain.

Ticket sales made it possible for the lottery to raise more than half a billion dollars for the state last year. For details on how $13 million in lottery funds have made a difference in Pasquotank County, click on the “Where the Money Goes” tab on the lottery’s website.