At first glance on Friday, Derrick Lawrence of Knightdale missed seeing that he held in his hands a Cash 5 ticket worth $813,336.
“I didn’t really look at the ticket until this afternoon,” said Lawrence. “I saw the numbers this morning but I didn’t pay it no mind. And then I looked at the ticket again and thought, ‘Boy, those numbers look mighty familiar! Man, I gotta go downtown!’”
His good luck began on Thursday when he and his wife stopped on the way to dinner at Oak Park Mart on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh to buy some Quick Pick tickets for that night’s drawing. One of the tickets matched all five numbers to win the jackpot.
“What a win!” he exclaimed. “My wife and I are just going to put the money towards retirement.”
Lawrence, who works at a pharmaceutical company, says he only has about seven years before retirement.
“I’m still trying to absorb all of this,” he said. “It’s truly a blessing!” Lawrence claimed his prize Friday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh.
After required federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $575,437.
Cash 5 tickets are $1 with drawings held every night. Monday’s jackpot is $132,000. The odds of winning a Cash 5 jackpot are 1 in 962,598.
Cash 5 is one of four lottery games in North Carolina where players have the option of buying their tickets through Online Play either through the lottery’s website or with the NC Lottery Official Mobile App.
Login to leave a comment.