Members of a Wake Forest family are celebrating their good luck after they won $2 million playing Powerball.
Steddy Primus of Upper Marlboro, Md. said his mom, who lives in Wake Forest, likes to get a Powerball ticket every week. The Army veteran normally checks the numbers for her to see if she won anything.
That’s what happened after the Nov. 15 drawing. When he saw that the ticket won a $2 million prize, he immediately called the rest of the family.
“At first I thought something was wrong,” Eleas Ottley of Wake Forest said. “We never call each other that early in the morning unless something bad happened.”
“I was worried,” said Chavonne Primus, a software project manager who also lives in Wake Forest. “The text said he needed to talk to me and was planning to make a trip down to deal with some stuff.”
When he finally told them what had happened Eleas, who works as a nurse, didn’t believe him.
“I thought he was playing a trick,” she said. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
It wasn’t a trick, and they claimed the prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required state and federal withholdings, Primus took home $973,014. His daughter Chavonne and his aunt Eleas both took home $208,503. All three plan to use some of the money to pay bills and put the rest in savings.
Primus’ mom bought the Quick Pick ticket at El Mandado Supermercados on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh.
Ticket sales from draw games like Powerball make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $600 million a year for the state.
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