Deborah Chandler said she flipped out on Friday the 13th when she found out her Cash 5 ticket was one of three that would split a $1,065,423 jackpot.
Chandler, who enjoys playing draw games, stopped to check her tickets the day after the Thursday, Jan. 12 drawing. She discovered one was a winner and thought she had won “$1,000 or something.” But the store clerk checked behind her and told her to sign the back immediately because she was the “Triad winner of the Cash 5 jackpot.”
“I was shaking,” Chandler said. “I was over excited. I screamed in the store. The lady said, ‘Are you OK?’ I said, ‘I’m fantastic.’”
Chandler, an assembler at a medical devices company, beat the odds of 1 in 749,398 in the drawing. She purchased her lucky ticket at the Stanleyville Grocery on North Patterson Avenue, playing a set of numbers reused from a previous Quick Pick ticket.
Chandler claimed her prize Friday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, receiving a third of the jackpot, $355,141. After required state and federal tax withholdings, she took home $246,826.
She said she and her husband, Larry, had not made final decisions on how to use their prize money, but that they would pay bills, consider buying a car, and take a trip to Florida to see spring training with the Atlanta Braves.
The two other winners have already claimed their share. Those prizes went to Lisa Williard of Harmony and Andrew Boris of Pineville.
Carolina Cash 5 tickets are $1. Drawings are held each night at 11:22 p.m. Friday’s jackpot is an estimated $437,000.
Ticket sales from games like Cash 5 made it possible for the lottery to raise more than $634 million for the state last year. For details on how lottery funds have made a difference in Forsyth County, click on the “For Education” section of the lottery’s website.