Friends of 35 years keep promise, split $361,527 Fast Play win

Scott Edwards of Julian and Perry Charles of Lexington made a pact a long time ago to split any big lottery wins with each other, and that promise was kept Tuesday when Charles won a $361,527 Fast Play jackpot.

“I’d just gotten off of work,” Charles recalled. “I looked at the amount you could win and thought to myself, ‘Man, I want this!’”

Charles chose to wait until he got home to see if he’d won. When he saw that he had, he called Edwards and kept his word.

“I was lost for words,” said Edwards. “I was kind of in shock too because to me that’s a lot of money to win. And I know that anything he says is just the truth. So, I knew when he told me that he wasn’t pulling my leg.”

Edwards knows his friend well – especially after 35 years. “He’s what you call a true friend,” he said. “Kinda like family.”

The two met while working at Winn-Dixie. “He was my boss!” Edwards laughed. Charles added, “We always talked about if we would hit something big, it didn’t matter if we went in together to get the ticket or if we got it separate, we were gonna share it with each other.”

Charles bought his winning $5 Double Win ticket from the Mast Food Mart on Old U.S. 64 East in Lexington. When he bought his ticket, the Fast Play jackpot stood at a record $723,054. A $5 ticket receives 50 percent of the jackpot amount. The odds of winning a Fast Play jackpot are 1 in 320,000.

They arrived at lottery headquarters Wednesday to collect their prize and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, received $128,361. Both said they were looking forward to paying some bills.

The Fast Play rolling jackpot grows with every ticket purchased. When a Fast Play jackpot is won, it starts over at $20,000. On Thursday afternoon, the jackpot was $398,188 and growing.

Ticket sales from scratch-off games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $900 million per year for education. For details on how money raised by the lottery makes a difference in your county, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.