On Super Bowl Sunday, Marie Magee decided to pick up a Cash 5 ticket while she grocery shopped and bagged half of the $536,264 jackpot.
“Wonderful,” she said of realizing she had hit the jackpot. “It’s exciting. I never thought this would ever happen.”
Magee, who works as a business officer, purchased her winning Quick Pick ticket for the Feb. 7 drawing from Publix on North Croatan Highway in Kill Devil Hills.
It took checking her NC Lottery Official Mobile App two times, once in the morning and a second at lunchtime, before Magee’s win sunk in. “I went to the app and it said there was two winners and one was in Kill Devil Hills,” she recalled. “So, I said, “Okay, I’m 99.9% sure I won this.’”
Magee’s ticket was one of two that matched all five numbers in the drawing, winning her $268,132. The other half of the jackpot was won by Lee Tankard of Bath.
After she realized her win, Magee called her husband to share the good news. “He thought I was kidding of course,” she laughed. “But Super Bowl Sunday must be our lucky day because I think about 10 years ago, he won a La-Z-Boy lounger on Super Bowl Sunday in a football sweepstakes!”
Magee, of Kill Devil Hills, claimed her half of the jackpot on Friday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. She took home $189,704 after required federal and state tax withholdings.
“We’re not retiring but we’re getting close to it,” she said. “We were just gonna pay off some things and use it for investment.”
Carolina Cash 5 tickets are $1 and drawings are held every night. Tuesday’s jackpot is $121,000.
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.
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