Every once in a while, Ivory Thompson of Greensboro gets a ‘lucky’ feeling, and on Saturday that feeling won her a $4 million top prize and the opportunity for a new career.

“I just randomly have days where I feel lucky!” said Thompson. “I feel like my life could change that day. So, I get them here and there whenever I’m feeling lucky, and that day I was.”

After she got off of work from her job as a server, Thompson stopped at Alamance Church Food Mart on Alamance Church Road in Greensboro and purchased a single $20 Millionaire Bucks scratch-off ticket.

“I had just pulled in at a relative’s home,” recalled Thompson of the moment she scratched off her winning ticket. “I had my mom and my sister with me and I scratched it before we went upstairs and then we just started crying. It was so overwhelming.”

Thompson claimed her prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. She had the choice of taking the $4 million as an annuity of $200,000 a year over 20 years, or a lump sum of $2.4 million. She chose the lump sum and took home $1,698,006 after federal and state tax withholdings.

“It’s definitely going to change my life,” said Thompson. “I’m so very grateful.”

With her prize money, Thompson plans to begin a new career in real estate. “That’s my main goal,” she said. “I just want to make this money make money so I can set up a future for my son. Because that’s just all I can think about. How I’ve been granted an opportunity to create such a good future for him.”

Millionaire Bucks launched in June with four top prizes of $4 million and six $100,000 prizes. Two $4 million prizes and five $100,000 prizes remain to be won.

Ticket sales from scratch-offs make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million per year for education. For details on how $31.9 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Guilford County in 2019, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.