Dreams of winning a Powerball jackpot led Elaine Gherardi of Mint Hill to a $482,890 Cash 5 jackpot.
The accountant’s good fortune happened when she stopped by Earp’s Express on Brighton Park Drive in Charlotte to get Powerball tickets for Saturday’s drawing.
“I saw how high the Cash 5 jackpot was,” Gherardi said. “So I figured I should get some of those tickets while I was there.”
She bought five Quick Pick tickets. She checked them the next morning.
“I was reading the news and saw that someone won the Powerball,” Gherardi said. “I checked my Powerball tickets, and then as an afterthought I figured I might as well check my Cash 5 tickets.”
She saw that one of her tickets matched all five numbers.
“I swear I almost passed out,” Gherardi said. “I had to sit down and put my head between my knees. I just thought, ‘This can’t be real, this can’t be real.’”
To make sure she wasn’t seeing things, she took the ticket back to the store and had the clerk scan it.
“When the music went off, I knew,” Gherardi said. “I had to keep telling myself, ‘I’m awake right now. I’m not sleeping, I’m not dreaming. This is real.’”
Gherardi’s ticket beat odds of one in 749,398 to win Saturday’s jackpot. She claimed the prize Tuesday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required state and federal tax withholdings, she took home $340,444. She plans to use some of the money to give her children and grandchildren a nice Christmas. She’ll put the rest in retirement.
“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have this as a nest egg,” Gherardi said. “My husband’s already retired and I’m close to it. Just knowing that everything is going to be taken care of is such a relief.”
Ticket sales from draw games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $650 million a year for education. For details on how lottery funds have made a difference in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s website.
Login to leave a comment.