John Manousaridis of Morehead City won $122,920 playing Carolina Cash 5 – but did not realize his good luck for almost a month.

Manousaridis, who travels often for the restaurant equipment business he owns, bought the lucky Quick Pick ticket for the May 27 drawing at the Chicod store on N.C. 43 South in Greenville. Not expecting a big win, he tucked the ticket away with Cash 5 tickets for other drawings.

Manousaridis finally got around to checking his tickets at another store this week. It turned out the ticket from the May 27 drawing matched all five numbers to beat odds of 1 in 749,398. He was shocked.

“I didn’t even know where the ticket was from,” Manousaridis said at lottery headquarters in Raleigh.

Manousaridis said he would use his after-tax winnings of $85,122 to pay bills and invest in his business.

Ticket sales from games like Cash 5 made it possible for the lottery to raise more than half a billion dollars for the state last year. For details on how more than $21.2 million in lottery funds has made a difference in Carteret County, click on the “For Education” section of the lottery’s website.