Tommy Foster of Dobson credits instinct for winning the $750,000 top Jumbo Bucks prize.

Foster, a body shop worker, said he was getting ready to go to bed Sunday night when “something told me to put my shoes back on and go to the store.”

He followed that hunch all the way to Brintle’s Travel Plaza on Plaza Lane in Mount Airy, bought the $10 scratch-off ticket, and scratched his way to a $750,000 prize.

When Foster realized he won, he rushed home and woke up his family. “They couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night.”

Foster claimed his prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required state and federal withholdings he took home $519,378.

Ticket sales from games like Jumbo Bucks made it possible for the lottery to raise more than half a billion dollars for the state last year. For details on how more than $ 30.6 million in lottery funds have made a difference in Surry County, click on the “Where the Money Goes” section of the lottery’s website.