Players across North Carolina win 33 big prizes

The biggest winner news of the week is that we had our state's first Lucky for Life ticket win the game's top prize of $1,000 a Day for Life. The ticket, sold in Salisbury, matched all six numbers in Thursday's drawing.

Three players won six-figure prizes. And one of them is from the county in our state with the smallest population of any in North Carolina.

Just over 4,000 people live in Tyrrell County, and fewer than 1,000 of them live in the town of Columbia where Roy McClure calls home. McClure, a carpenter, bought a $5 ticket for the $500 Cash game and won $150,000. He called his wife to share the good news and headed home. “I stopped on the top of the bridge for a moment, and hollered,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the Tar Heel state's third-largest city of Winston-Salem, a community college student who won $100,000 says she's going to buy a Volkswagen Beetle with her prize money. Dasmine Caldwell, who hopes to become a pediatrician, won the prize on a Ruby Red 7's ticket.

The biggest prize awarded this week belongs to Joseph Darmanin of Wake Forest. He's been playing the same set of Cash 5 numbers for months. In the Oct. 18 drawing, his numbers appeared, winning the $201,474 jackpot.

A $3 Bonus Crossword ticket spelled $75,000 for Taiia Gladden of Asheboro. Wilma Lesane of Bladenboro won $50,000 instantly playing Carolina Millions and Michael Bennet won $20,000 on an Ultimate Millions ticket.

Two players from High Point won $10,000 each. Michael Burger won playing $4,000,000 Platinum Payout and Brenda Hall won playing $4,000,000 Multiplier Spectacular. Seven other winners scratched their way to $10,000:

- Eric Blackwell of Lexington ($400,000 Bonus Cash)
- Terry Hendrix of Hickory (Ruby Red 7's)
- Terrell Lambe of Rocky Point ($1,000,000 Bonus Cash)
- Maggie Morrison of Charlotte ($1,000,000 Bonus Cash)
- Brenda Shaffer of Salisbury (Millionaire 7's)
- Jimmie Summey of Arden (Carolina Millions)
- Michael Vaughn of Burlington (Millionaire Bucks)

And 18 prizes of $5,000 were won. Four went to players in Charlotte, two in Raleigh, and two more in Thomasville. The other 10 went to players from Asheville, Denver, Elizabeth City, Franklinton, Lexington, Rougemont, Sanford, Shelby, Tarboro, and Winston-Salem.

That adds up to 33 wins of $5,000 to $201,474 this week. We congratulate the winners and wish everyone luck on their next ticket.

See you here on the blog soon.