Lottery winner had almost given up on buying ticket

By Kate Northrop

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A North Carolina man almost gave up on purchasing a lottery ticket at the store, but it's thanks to the cashier that he ended up winning a $2 million prize.

One North Carolina lottery player was lucky enough to win a $2 million prize and is crediting the store clerk who sold him the winning ticket.

Kenneth Skipper of Angier was just about ready to call it quits on buying a $20 scratch-off ticket last Friday when a technical error nearly took the fun out of playing the lottery.

"There was some type of problem with the card reader," Skipper told the North Carolina Lottery. "I tried like three times in a row, but for some reason, it wasn't working."

He was ready to throw in the towel on his lottery purchase when the clerk behind the counter urged him to try one more time.

"On that last try it finally went through," the Harnett County resident recalled.

Skipper walked out of the Circle V Mart on South McPherson Church Road in Fayetteville with his $20 "$2 Million Vault" instant ticket in-hand. He simply sat and stared at the ticket for five minutes after scratching it off.

"I called my wife and told her, 'I think I just won the lottery,'" the winner said in a press release. "She started freaking out."

That moment was so significant, Skipper went back into the store to find the clerk who sold him the ticket.

"I pulled her to the side and said, 'You've just changed my life,'" he recounted to Lottery officials.

Skipper paid a visit to Lottery staff at their headquarters in Raleigh that same day and opted to receive his prize as a $1.2 million lump sum. After federal and state tax withholdings, he took home a grand total of $861,006.

With the winnings, he plans to pay off some bills and donate to his church.

Skipper claimed the first top prize of $2 million of the three originally available at the game's launch in early May. All six second-tier prizes of $100,000 remain in the $20 "$2 Million Vault" scratch-off game, as well as 22 out of 24 third-tier prizes of $10,000.

The overall odds of winning any prize in the game are 1 in 3.35.