‘I better check it.’ Charlotte-area man nearly tosses winning NC lottery ticket into trash
A North Carolina lottery ticket worth $120,000 laid on the back seat of Jerry Dennis’ pickup truck, waiting for the Concord resident to cash it in.
“I about threw that ticket away,” Dennis said, according to a North Carolina Education Lottery news release.
Luckily he didn’t throw his Carolina Cash 5 jackpot away, and instead, he decided to cash in the winning ticket in on July 14 at Sam’s Mini Stop on Old Charlotte Road in Concord.
“I was tickled to death, I’ll tell you that!” Dennis said about the moment he realized he won.
Deciding to clean his truck, led to Dennis becoming thousands of dollars richer.
“The other day I started cleaning out my truck and thought, ‘I better check it. I feel lucky today,’” he said.
Dennis, who said he worked on a race team for about 15 years, plans on giving some of his winnings to his children and then buy a new Cadillac.
He claimed his prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, and after required federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $84,900.
Carolina Cash 5 tickets are $1, and drawings are held every night. Tuesday’s jackpot is $369,000. The odds of winning a Cash 5 jackpot are 1 in 962,598.
He’s the second Charlotte-area resident to collect their winnings in the past week.
Last Thursday, Karen Urtecho Sandrez of Charlotte took home nearly $850,000 after winning one of the top prizes in the $2 million 100X the Cash scratch-off game. The winning ticket was a gift from a family friend, she said.
