Cash 5 and scratch-offs pay off for players across state

Part of what makes playing the lottery fun is imagining what you would do when you win that big prize. So we’ll sum up some of this week’s big lottery wins with a quick report of what some of the winners said they would do.

Michael Scarlett of Lexington said he will use part of his $377,241 Cash 5 win to buy his wife a Corvette. He was one of two winners of the $754,482 Cash 5 jackpot on April 16. That jackpot, by the way, was the largest since January of last year.

Scarlett’s wife is not the only person getting a car. The grand-niece of Jill and Woodrow Stillwell of Dallas will get a car when she turns 16 this year thanks to Jill’s good luck of winning Wednesday’s night Cash 5 jackpot of $242,935. The rest, they said, will be a “cushion” in their savings account.

Over in Siler City, Fredy Gonzalez said his lottery win this week means he won’t be paying any more mortgage bills. He’s going to take the $100,000 he won playing the Crossword 10X game and pay off his mortgage.

Lots of winners want to help their families after winning the lottery and that’s what Charles Benjamin of New Bern said he would do with the $150,000 prize he won on a Trucks & Bucks ticket. He bought the ticket while coming home from a fishing trip. And he said he has at least one thing in mind for himself – a new rod and reel.

In all, lottery players across the state scratched and matched their way to more than $21 million in prizes during the week. Instant players won $16.9 million and draw game players won more than $4.8 million, including $4.4 million from North Carolina draw games Pick 3, Pick 4, Cash 5 and All or Nothing. Mega Millions and Powerball players won more than $352,000 in prizes.

Here are some other of the week’s noteworthy wins:

•    $377,241 Cash 5 win to John Walker of Gastonia. This was the other half of the April 16 jackpot.
•    $150,000 Trucks & Bucks instant prize to Emmett Willis III of Hildebran. If you’re counting, that means two of the four top prizes in that game have now been won.
•    $80,849 Cash 5 prize to Tamiko Redfern of Indian Trail. Redfern was one of two winners of the $161,698 jackpot on Jan. 27.
•    $60,335 Cash 5 jackpot from Feb. 4 to Victor Brewington of Lumberton.
•    $50,000 prizes from the Super Loteria instant game to Mark Smith of Apex and from the 100X The Cash instant game to Warren Osborne of Moravian Falls.
•    $20,000 prizes from the $1,000,000 Jackpot instant game to Michael Hardin of Kannapolis and from the Diamonds 2X instant game to Karneilius Richardson of Rocky Mount.
•    $10,000 Powerball win from the March 28 drawing to James Barnes of Granite Falls.
•    $10,000 instant prizes to Summer Medlin of Creedmoor from the $200 Million Blowout game; to Paul Topolka of Greensboro from the 100X The Cash game; to Kermit Lyle of Greenville from the $200 Million Blowout game; to Barbara Miller of Hudson from the Trucks & Bucks game; to Philip Morgan of Seagrove from the $200 Million Blowout game; and to Abelardo Diaz of Winston-Salem from the $4,000,000 Multiplier Game.