Samantha Spencer of Conover planned to rest on Thursday, but her plans changed with a jolt of excitement from a $158,426 digital instant jackpot win.
“I was about to lay down for a nap but that made me jump up real quick,” she laughed.
Spencer played for $1 and won the second level “Cadabra” jackpot in The Lamp: Dark Arts, a digital instant game featuring a progressive jackpot that can be won at any time. The odds of that win are 1 in 32 million.
“I was pretty surprised,” she recalled. “I didn’t expect that.”
She chose to play The Lamp: Dark Arts because of the color of the game.
“My favorite color is green and the wheel in the game is green,” Spencer explained.
She claimed her prize Monday at lottery headquarters and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $113,671.
Spencer plans to use her winnings to pay bills and help with local cat rescues.
In The Lamp: Dark Arts, a player can play from 50 cents to $30. After Spencer won the jackpot, it restarted at $25,000. The game’s top level “Alakazam” jackpot stands at over $892,000 as of Tuesday morning.
Digital instant games are played exclusively online on the lottery’s website or on the NC Lottery Official Mobile App. Forty-six different games are available to play online now.
Catawba County received $38 million in state grants, with money raised by the lottery, to help with school construction. For details on other ways Catawba County benefits from lottery funds, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.