They work as a team, they play the lottery as a team, and now a group of 14 co-workers are celebrating a $1 million Mega Millions win as a team.
When Roseanne Smith saw the $1.537 billion jackpot for Tuesday’s drawing, she started an office pool.
“I asked everyone if they’d seen how high the jackpot was,” Smith said. “I started walking up and down the rows asking who wanted to play.”
Each member chipped in $20 and they bought 140 Quick Pick tickets from the Circle K on Harrison Avenue in Cary.
Erica Hayes was the first person to learn of the group’s good fortune.
“I turned on the news the next morning,” Hayes said. “They said the winning ticket was sold in South Carolina, but they also said two tickets in North Carolina won $1 million.”
She immediately started checking the tickets. When she saw she had a winning one, she texted the group’s supervisor who was also part of the pool.
“She asked if I had checked the numbers,” Francis Bassett said. “I wrote back, ‘It’s 6:30 in the morning. No, but I’ll do it now.’ When I realized we had the winning ticket I texted her back asking, ‘Is that what I think it is?’”
When Bassett got to work he immediately scheduled a meeting to tell everyone.
“At first I thought we were in trouble,” John Gulas said. “I expected him to say something about corporate not wanting us to play on company time.”
That wasn’t what happened. Once they assembled, Basset held up the lottery tickets one by one and said, “There are a lot of ways to win in this game. You can win $4 like this one did, or you can win $1 million like this one did.”
“We were shocked,” Patrick Bloomer said. “We couldn’t believe it.”
They claimed the prize Friday afternoon at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. They split the prize 14 ways and after required state and federal tax withholdings, they each took home over $50,000.
The group has a variety of plans for the money. Some are going to pay off mortgages and student loans, others want to travel. Hayes plans to take her daughter on her very first vacation.
“I’m a single mother,” Hayes explained. “My daughter is 11. We’ve never been able to go on a trip together, so I’m going to take her to Disney World and Harry Potter world.”
Bloomer also plans to make some lasting memories.
“I’m going to get front row seats to Wrestle Mania,” Bloomer said. “It was either that or try to get Metallica to come play in my backyard. I figured Wrestle Mania was more likely.”
For Smith, it’s not about the money, it’s the fact that they won together.
“This is a great group of people,” Smith said, a little teary eyed. “I couldn’t ask to work with a better team, and now we’ve won as a team.”
The ticket matched the five white balls to win $1 million. It beat odds of one in 12,607,306. It was one of two sold in North Carolina to win $1 million prizes in the drawing. Two Multiplier tickets won $30,000, and nine tickets won $10,000 in the drawing.
Ticket sales from draw games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $650 million a year for the state. For details on how lottery funds have made a difference in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s website.
Winners:
Erica Hayes, Cary
John Parker, Clayton
John Gulas, Cary
David Pitts, Raleigh
Ryan Mowatt, Raleigh
Patrick Bloomer, Wake Forest
David Peters, Fuquay Varina
Roseanne Smith, Fuquay Varina
David Mosley, Apex
Francis Bassett, Zebulon
Walter Overman, Raleigh
Richard Degenhardt, Cary
Derek Proffit, Raleigh
Ted Hart, Cary