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Sylvester Lane Jr. of Snow Hill said he hid his winning $1,000,000 Taxes Paid scratch-off ticket in his exercise machine over the weekend to keep it safe.
“The pedal of my exercise bike has a rubber part that you can take off,” said Lane. “I folded up the ticket, put it inside of the bike pedal, and put the rubber part back on. I thought, ‘Nobody will find it there!’”
Lane stopped by the Four Way Mart on N.C. 123 North in Hookerton and bought the lucky $10 ticket. When Lane saw the amount he won, he immediately called his daughter, Nicky, to share the good news. But she didn’t believe him at first.
“I was laying down after work when he called me,” said Nicky recalling the moment. “He said, ‘I’ve got something that will make you feel real good. I just hit the lottery.’ I thought he meant like $1,000 or something, but then he told me it was one million. I said, ‘You’re playing with me.’”
A player who wins a top prize in this game gets a check for the top prize amount with the taxes already paid. The lottery pays the minimum mandatory required federal and state tax withholding as part of the top prizes awarded in the game. The actual top prize Lane claimed on Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh was $1,438,829. After required state and federal withholdings, he took home $1,014,391. The Army veteran plans to take care of his family with the winnings.
The game launched in April with four top prizes. One top prize remains to be claimed.
Ticket sales from games like $1,000,000 Taxes Paid make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $600 million a year for education. For details on how $1.3 million raised by the lottery supported education programs in Greene County last year, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s website, https://www.nclottery.com.
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