NC grocery store shopper bags big lottery win, beats odds of 1 in 3 million
A shopper was leaving a North Carolina Food Lion with groceries when he “felt a sudden urge” to buy a scratch-off ticket that netted him a big prize, N.C. Education Lottery officials said Tuesday.
“Something just stopped me and told me to buy a ticket,” Stephen Zick said at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Monday, according to a lottery news release.
The 76-year-old Charlotte man won a $100,000 prize. But at first, he said he didn’t realize how much he had won with the $20 Platinum ticket he bought at the store on Mount Holly-Huntersville Road in Charlotte.
He stopped at the store to pick up a few groceries for his sister and said intuition prompted him to buy the ticket, he said.
“When I scratched it, I saw I won something,” Zick said. “But it wasn’t until I got home and my sister told me, that I realized how much it was. I thought she was kidding.”
After taxes, Zick took home $71,016, according to the lottery.
Zick beat odds of 1 in 3.23 million, according to the Platinum game page on NCLottery.com.
“All I know is now I can get what I want,” he said. “I really never expected that.”
Zick said he will give some of the winnings to his family and some to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Platinum debuted in August with four $2 million prizes and eight $100,000 prizes. Three $2 million prizes and four $100,000 prizes remain to be claimed.