Osama Lafi of Charlotte always believed he would win big playing digital instants and his persistence paid off when he won a $668,911 jackpot.
“I knew it was going to come,” Lafi said. “I just had to have patience, keep trying, and then finally it happened.”
Lafi played a $2 ticket on June 28 and won the top level ‘Epic jackpot’ in the Bison Bonanza game, a digital instant game featuring a progressive jackpot that can be won at any time. The odds of that win are 1 in 15.5 million.
“My heart was beating so fast,” he recalled. “I was screaming on the inside.”
Lafi said he has a routine of playing digital instants at night.
“I always like to play them before I go to sleep,” he said. “When I won, I was half asleep and half awake. I could barely sleep after that though.”
He claimed his prize at lottery headquarters Wednesday and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $478,272.
Lafi plans to buy a new car, help some friends and family, and save the rest.
In the Bison Bonanza digital instant game, a player can play from 50 cents to $30. After Lafi won the jackpot, it restarted at $50,000 and had grown over $124,000 as of Thursday morning.
Digital instant games are played exclusively online on the lottery’s website or on the NC Lottery Official Mobile App. Twenty-six different games are available to play online now.
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