In one year, players take home 45 prizes of $1 million or more

When you win a big lottery prize, you come to lottery headquarters in Raleigh and are escorted into our “Big Winner” room to claim it. In the year we just finished on June 30th, we handed out a “Big Check” for $1 million or more 45 times.

We met all kinds of people from all walks of life. Carpenters, veterans from the Army and Air Force, a firefighter, a postman, a greenhouse worker, a graphic designer, a poultry farmer, a textile worker, a tax preparer, a furniture maker, and an airline worker all sat at one time in the winner’s chair.

And the biggest winner of the year was Dan Royal, a carpenter from Forest City. He received $5.2 million playing the $5,000 a Week for Life! game. The win was his second to put him in the chair. In February 2012, Royal had claimed a $750,000 prize in the Jumbo Bucks game. He’s a nice guy, and a lucky guy.

We love seeing people get lucky like Dan and have a lot of fun handing out big checks when that happens. Sometimes the Powerball, Mega Millions Ball or the Cash 5 Ball join the party.

The fun is for a good cause. Players playing lottery games helped the lottery raise more than half a billion for education programs in North Carolina.

Here are some stats from the stories about those lucky wins.

•    Thirty-two of the wins occurred with instant games; nine with the Powerball game; three with the Mega Millions game; and one with a second-chance drawing in the Monopoly instant game.
•    Winners of $1 million or more lived in 23 different North Carolina counties with seven residing in Wake County, five each in Mecklenburg and Guilford counties; four in Cumberland County, and two each from Halifax, Nash, Cleveland, Rowan, and New Hanover counties.
•    Plans for spending winnings included paying bills, saving for retirement, college funds, charities, helping family, buying new homes and cars, investments and taking vacations.
•    Three of the winners, including Royal, had won big before. One $1 million winner had won $250,000 before and a third $1 million winner had won $150,000 before.
•    Two of the $1 million winners told us they were playing the lottery for the first time.  Wow. That’s some luck there.

Congratulations to all those winners. We enjoyed meeting you and hearing your stories of good luck.  We hope to meet even more millionaires this year.