A lucky feeling led Henry Ford of Walnut Cove to a $100,000 Keno win.

“For some reason, Keno kept staring at me,” he recalled. “Something just told me to play Keno.”

Ford, a truck driver, purchased his Keno ticket from the Pop Shoppe on West Friendly Avenue in Greensboro.

“I didn’t know I won $100,000 because it said to go to headquarters,” he recalled. So, Ford decided to take his ticket to the lottery’s Greensboro claims center to find out his prize.

When he learned he won $100,000, he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“I started dancing,” he said. “And the rest is history.”

Ford claimed his prize Friday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh and took home $70,753 after required federal and state tax withholdings.

He plans to use his prize money to pay off bills. “I am a happy man,” said Ford.

Carolina Keno lets you choose how many numbers, or spots, you play and your choice determines your odds and the prize you play for. Players can also add a multiplier to their ticket and increase prizes up to 10 times the win!

Ford’s big win came when he selected two drawings on a $20 Keno with Multiplier ticket. “My lucky number is 8, so I picked an 8-spot and let the machine do the rest,” he said.

In one of the drawings, Ford’s Keno with Multiplier ticket matched all eight spots in an 8-Spot game. His total prize was multiplied to $100,000 when the 2X multiplier was drawn.

This is the fourth time there has been a $100,000 Keno win since the game started in 2017.

Ticket sales from Carolina Keno make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $900 million per year for education. For details on how $2.5 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Stokes County in 2020, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.