Babacar Samb of Jamestown said winning a prize of $25,000 A Year For Life in the Lucky for Life game means he can leave apartment life behind and buy a home for his wife and baby son.

Samb’s Quick Pick ticket, purchased at Great Stops on West Wendover Ave in Jamestown, captured the largest prize in Sunday’s Lucky for Life drawing. He said he stayed up to check his tickets after the drawing was held.

“I woke my wife up,” said Samb, a 36-year-old machine operator, on Monday. “She couldn’t believe it. She said, ‘No way.’ I said, ‘Yes. This is real. We did it.’”

Winners of the game’s second-tier prize are guaranteed a payment of $25,000 a year for the rest of their life. They can also choose to claim the prize instead as a lump sum of $390,000.

Samb said he chose the lump sum because he wants to buy a home. After federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $275,925.

“Wow, it’s amazing,” Samb said. “It’s like a dream right now. It’s hard to believe.”

Samb became the third North Carolinian to win the $25,000 A Year For Life prize in the last four weeks. Lucky for Life drawings are now held daily. The game has 10 ways to win and the top prize is $1,000 A Day For Life.

Lucky for Life is one of four lottery games in North Carolina where players have the option of buying their tickets through Online Play, either through the lottery’s website or with the NC Lottery Official Mobile App.

Ticket sales from draw games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $900 million a year for education. For details on how $32 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Guilford County in 2020, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.