NC woman craved potato chips and scored a top lottery prize, officials say
A North Carolina woman craving potato chips stopped at a convenience store and returned home with a whole lot more after deciding to buy a $25 scratch-off ticket, N.C. lottery officials said Tuesday.
Marcia Finney said she “had to wipe my eyes and look again,” when she claimed her $100,000 prize at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Monday, according to a lottery news release.
She had just scratched off “all those zeroes” on her Spectacular Riches ticket, and kept telling herself, “‘This is not real, it’s not real,’” officials said.
.jpeg "Spectacular Riche_fitted (1).jpeg")
And the Shelby resident stopped at Mike’s Food Store on Earl Road only because her usual store was closed, she said.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be at that store,” Finney said.
Finney is a 44-year-old assistant general manager at a Pizza Hut. She double-checked her ticket because she couldn’t believe she’d won.
Odds of 1 in 4.26 million
“I just kept sitting there staring at it,” she said. “I was in shock.”
Finney beat odds of 1 in 4.26 million, according to the Spectacular Riches page on NCLottery.com.
After taxes, she took home $71,017, according to the lottery.
“I’ve been looking for somewhere to live for like two years,” Finney said. “Now I can have a place of my own.”
Spectacular Riches launched in October with eight top $1-million prizes and 20 $100,000 prizes. Three $1-million and eight $100,000 prizes remain to be claimed, officials said.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 6:00 AM.