Rosemarie Love of Fayetteville said she believes a $200,000 lottery ticket was just waiting for her when she stopped to get gas on Tuesday.
Love said she had forgotten to get gas the day before and that led to the stop at the Circle K on Skibo Road in Fayetteville. Later that night, Love scratched the $5 Wheel of Fortune ticket while sitting at her kitchen table. On the middle row of the ticket she found a “Money Bag” symbol that meant she had won the $200,000 prize beneath it.
“It was just supposed to happen,” said Love. “It works in mysterious ways sometimes.”
Love claimed her prize Wednesday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required state and federal tax withholdings, she took home $141,501.
Love said she planned to buy a gift for her daughter, help out a few friends, pay off her car loan, and then put the rest in savings.
“Unreal,” Love said as she got her big check. “It’s hard to believe until I see it in my savings.”
The Wheel of Fortune game started in May with four top prizes of $200,000. One remains to be claimed.
Players of the game also have a chance to win one of four trips for two to Los Angeles in an upcoming second-chance drawing. The trip includes round-trip airfare to Los Angeles, three nights’ deluxe accommodations, a tour of Sony Studios, a bus tour of Hollywood, studio audience tickets for a taping of the Wheel of Fortune show, and tickets to a Spin To Win event where up to $1 million could be won.
Wheel of Fortune tickets can be entered on the lottery’s website, nclottery.com, or scanned on the lottery’s app, the N.C. Lottery Official Mobile App, and automatically entered into the second-chance drawing. Four North Carolinians won trips in July. The date for the second drawing has not been set.
Ticket sales from scratch-off games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $700 million a year for the state. For details on how lottery funds have helped all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s website. https://www.nclottery.com.