NC lottery player visits 40 retailers and wins $5 million

Aug 1, 2020, 6:43 pm (31 comments)

North Carolina Lottery

Four tedious hours of searching later, and he has the winning ticket

By Kate Northrop

A North Carolina man bent on finding the last top prize in a lottery scratch-off game conducted a modern day treasure hunt and came out the big winner. 

Last Thursday, one North Carolina resident traveled to 40 different stores in a crusade to find the last top prize-winning ticket for a scratch-off lottery game. Four well-spent hours later, his tenacity lands him exactly what he was looking for — a $5 million jackpot.

One day, Kevin Clark, of Candler, had his sights set on that one remaining top prize for the $5,000,000 Mega Cash scratch-off game, which has been active for over three years now. He set out on a four-hour journey, hopping from store to store to buy every single one of those $20 tickets he could find.

Finally, his efforts brought him to the Stop N Go convenience store at a gas station on U.S. 70 in Swannanoa, where he purchased the last top-prize winning ticket of the game.

"I had a real good feeling it was going to be in the western part of the state," Clark explained in a press release. "I scanned it with my phone, and it told me to go see a retailer. So, I scratched it off, and when I scratched it off, I couldn't believe it. I started shaking. And then I cried."

According to the North Carolina Education Lottery, Clark had reportedly "put in the research" before finally deciding that he would take a big risk in buying up every ticket from the game he could find.

"There was only a handful of stores that even had them," he said.

Clark opted not to go into work on Monday morning and instead went to lottery headquarters in Raleigh to claim his winnings. He had the choice of taking either the $5 million prize as an annuity of $250,000 every year for 20 years or a lump sum of $3 million. He decided on the one-time payment and took home $2,122,506 — well worth the four hours of searching.

First things first, the winner plans on getting a good night's sleep after the excitement of winning kept him up for days. Beyond that, Clark says he wants to get into real estate.

"I'm a simple man, and I mow grass," he told the lottery. "but I've always been interested in real estate, so my biggest plans with the majority of the money is to invest in real estate and some small businesses."

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

Bleudog101

Talk about tenacity.   Congratulations!   Was wondering how much he spent on the four hour 'shopping spree' @ $20/ticket, but who cares?   His logic paid off handsomely.   Chalk up another one for the NCEL.

grwurston's avatargrwurston

Talk about doing your homework!!! Good for him.  Cheers

The next question is, will NC change things up after this?

darthfury78

Kevin Clark should have taken the annual installment plan instead of the lump sum payout. At least that's what I would done. That right there would be a yearly pension plan that would go into a trust...Cool

cottoneyedjoe's avatarcottoneyedjoe

Nicely done, Kevin Clark!

Cassie8620's avatarCassie8620

Quote: Originally posted by darthfury78 on Aug 1, 2020

Kevin Clark should have taken the annual installment plan instead of the lump sum payout. At least that's what I would done. That right there would be a yearly pension plan that would go into a trust...Cool

my dad get a very nice pension(still)

investment since a mere young late forties, 50 y.o. middle age, paying off for him (still)

yep. he really started investing then,and now him and mom are happier senior citizens et.al.,

and i know he was saying when i share this story with him, "invest it."No need to take a pymt., per year. Gov't are not to be trusted, he say.

Better to take lump-sum then invest it,etc. 

 

I am so happy for this guy, Yes Noda fellow nc resident, make me happy seeing this."

 

I hear ya, on yearly pymt., etc.al., but i wouldn't.

 

Not me. I would be prudent like Kev.

I don't trust all gov't, no way.

I would want it all JIC(just in case)something goes haywire,

 

then he don't get his other payments,no thanks.

 

I am happy another guy took lump sum. Great job! So happy for him.

 

congrats!Hurray!

KY Floyd's avatarKY Floyd

"will NC change things up after this?"

Why should they change anything? All they did was report how many top prizes were unclaimed.

"wondering how much he spent on the four hour 'shopping spree' "

If I knew that I'd have a pretty good idea how he'd feel if he was reading an LP article about some other guy that had just claimed the prize after buying the winning ticket on a whim after stopping for gas last Wednesday night. That he says only a handful of stores had them makes me suspect he didn't have to buy an awful lot of them, so maybe he wasn't risking anything more than a grand or two. Despite the chance that the last winner was already sold but not yet claimed, it's a very reasonable bet to buy as many tickets as you can find when you can't find that many of them. I'm sure it was a lot less risk than when Joan Ginther was buying entire packs of tickets so that the store would have to order more for her to buy when she was searching for a big prize in the TX lottery.

music*'s avatarmusic*

Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on Aug 2, 2020

"will NC change things up after this?"

Why should they change anything? All they did was report how many top prizes were unclaimed.

"wondering how much he spent on the four hour 'shopping spree' "

If I knew that I'd have a pretty good idea how he'd feel if he was reading an LP article about some other guy that had just claimed the prize after buying the winning ticket on a whim after stopping for gas last Wednesday night. That he says only a handful of stores had them makes me suspect he didn't have to buy an awful lot of them, so maybe he wasn't risking anything more than a grand or two. Despite the chance that the last winner was already sold but not yet claimed, it's a very reasonable bet to buy as many tickets as you can find when you can't find that many of them. I'm sure it was a lot less risk than when Joan Ginther was buying entire packs of tickets so that the store would have to order more for her to buy when she was searching for a big prize in the TX lottery.

I Agree! Dr. Joan Ginther won a total of $20,000,000.00  Her PhD is in mathematics. She graduated from Stanford, California 

 The good Doc has kept a very low profile since her wins. 

Vergie6

So it took him 4 hours to go to 40 stores to buy up all of those tickets...that's a lot of stores

to go to in 4 hours but sure turned out to be worth it for him....wish I had the money to do

something like that...you would be bound to get some big wins even if you did not get the

big one!

So happy for him!Drum

Rngrepeats

 something smells fishy here! Ok let's see 20 dollar ticket let's say 1 and half rolls at each store lets just say 500 a store times 40. 20000 if my math is right! What I question is how much was he going to lose If he had not found that needle in a haystack? Lol

HiyoCheeto

The reason it's not advisable to take the annuity is taxes. They almost always go up, as some people have found out.

darthfury78

Quote: Originally posted by HiyoCheeto on Aug 2, 2020

The reason it's not advisable to take the annuity is taxes. They almost always go up, as some people have found out.

Not unless they use the annuity to invest in stocks over a gradual period of time. It never bothered anyone in the past before the lottery offered the lump sum option. Some people take the annuity for the yearly income from the full amount. The lump sum, on the other hand, is what's available as payment, which is half the annuity amount that will get taxed at almost half the amount. There are some lottery winners who regret not talking the annuity payments over the 20 year time frame..

PHIL85

Kevin spent $7.3 million* buying up all the tickets, but he claimed bragging rights to finding the $5 million grand prize.        [*Joke]

SaraAnnRapp's avatarSaraAnnRapp

Congrats to him on the win, he deserves it! Cheers 

Sounds like he rolled the dice by only concentrating on a certain area of the state. His hunch paid off, which is awesome. Smile

Bleudog101

Quote: Originally posted by music* on Aug 2, 2020

I Agree! Dr. Joan Ginther won a total of $20,000,000.00  Her PhD is in mathematics. She graduated from Stanford, California 

 The good Doc has kept a very low profile since her wins. 

Being lazy here, music*.   Isn't she the lady that lived in Texas and won all that money?   If it is the same PhD I'm thinking it is heard she lives in Las Vegas.

 

After my post I realized he probably hit some smaller prizes on all those scratch tickets, he had to have buying up the rest of the rolls??? IDK.

Won $12 on PB/PP on-line last night.

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