Lottery player scores huge prize in ‘blowout’ NC drawing. ‘Right place, right time’
A lottery player tried his luck on a “blowout” drawing — and scored a huge prize.
“It was just the right place, right time,” Christopher Engels, who won $100,000, told the North Carolina Education Lottery.
Engels scored one of three top prizes in the Season End Blowout drawing. To enter the Jan. 8 drawing online, lottery players could redeem points they had accumulated from past tickets, lottery officials wrote in news releases and an email to McClatchy News.
This time around, the winners were chosen from more than 5 million entries. Engels, who said he enters each second-chance drawing he can, was thrilled that his efforts finally paid off.
“I was definitely happy and excited,” Engels said.
The lucky winner is from Kannapolis, a roughly 25-mile drive northeast from uptown Charlotte. He visited the lottery’s headquarters in Raleigh to cash in on his prize, which totaled $71,750 after taxes.
“For the past two or three years I’ve been wanting to come to Raleigh but I wanted to win a big prize so I would have a good reason to come here,” Engels said.
It’s not the first time a North Carolina lottery player’s tradition has led to a windfall. In 2023, a woman who regularly enters second-chance drawings also hit the jackpot, McClatchy News reported.
