Lottery player’s love for her grandkids leads to life-changing win in North Carolina

A woman’s devotion to her grandkids just made her rich, after she decided to use a combination of their birth dates in the North Carolina Education Lottery.

It happened in the Cash 5 game, which requires players to pick five numbers from 1 to 43.

Claudette Cox of Winterville won $569,347, lottery officials said in a July 8 news release. Winterville is about an 85-mile drive southeast from Raleigh.

Odds of winning the Cash 5’s rolling jackpot are 1 in 962,598.0, the game reports. (Rolling jackpots continue to build until someone wins.)

“I started to run around the house. I was like pinching myself because I couldn’t believe it was really happening to me,” Cox said in the release.

“We had just gone on vacation together as a family and had such a great time so I just decided to use their birthdays for my numbers.”

No, she did not reveal her lucky numbers.

The $1 ticket was purchased at a Harris Teeter in Greenville, and Cox waited more than three weeks to pick up her prize at the lottery headquarters in Raleigh.

It came to $407,084 after withholding for taxes, officials said.

“She said she has not decided how to spend the winnings aside from putting some in the bank,” lottery officials said.

This story was originally published July 10, 2024 at 9:55 AM with the headline "Lottery player’s love for her grandkids leads to life-changing win in North Carolina."