A craving for coffee led Lewis Hooper of Pine Grove, Pa. to a $200,000 lottery prize while he was driving to Greensboro.
The truck driver’s routes bring him to North Carolina every week. But this time, when he stopped at the New Dixie on N.C. 33 in Whitakers for coffee, he did something different.
“I don’t know why, but I decided to grab a scratch-off ticket,” Hooper said. “I really only stopped for a cup of coffee.”
He took his $200,000 Taxes Paid ticket to his truck and began scratching.
“I didn’t know what to think,” Hooper said when he saw that he won. “I didn’t believe it.”
A player who wins a top prize in this game gets a check for the top prize amount with the taxes already paid. The lottery pays the minimum mandatory required federal and state tax withholding as part of the top prizes awarded in the game. The actual top prize Hooper claimed on Monday was $287,766. He took home $200,001. He plans to save the money.
The $5 ticket launched in April with five top prizes. Two top prizes remain.
Ticket sales from games like $200,000 Taxes Paid made it possible for the lottery to raise more than half a billion dollars a year for education. For details on how lottery funds have made a difference in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, click on the “For Education” section of the lottery’s website.