On a Sunday morning in March, a celebration broke out in the home of William East of Greensboro when he and his wife discovered their Cash 5 ticket had captured the $239,006 jackpot.

East said they like to sneak up on the numbers when they check their Cash 5 tickets, reading one number at a time until they have checked all five. That morning, each check of the five numbers turned out to be a match.

“We just looked at each other,” East recalled, “then we were hooting and hollering and jumping up and down.”

East, the owner of a truck repair business, bought the lucky ticket for the March 14 drawing at Sumner Food Mart and Hardware on Old Randleman Road in Greensboro.

He claimed his prize at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Friday. After federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $169,099.

East said he and his wife planned to upgrade their motor home and then save for retirement.

The lucky ticket beat odds of 1 in 962,598. “You hope you will win,” said East, “but you never think that you will. We won. It’s sort of unbelievable.”

Cash 5 is a statewide draw game that gives players the chance to win a jackpot every single night. Tickets cost $1 and players can buy tickets at most lottery retailers or through Online Play on the lottery’s website or the N.C. Lottery Official Mobile app.

Jackpots start at $100,000 and go up each day until they are won. Wednesday’s Cash 5 jackpot is $708,000.

Ticket sales from draw games like Cash 5 make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $700 million per year for education. For details on how $31.9 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Guilford County last year, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.