Chao Sun of Advance has played the same set of numbers since March, and on Wednesday, those numbers scored him a $2 million Powerball prize.

“Definitely it’s a big shock,” said Sun. “And a big help. I never thought $2 million.”

Sun, an aerospace design engineer, purchased his lucky ticket using Online Play through the lottery’s website. He’s played the same set of numbers, comprised of significant birth dates and a lunar calendar year, for five months.

The morning after the drawing, Sun woke up early to two emails from the lottery. “I saw the second one and it means I won something,” recalled Sun. “I knew I won something but not sure how much.”

So, he logged into his NC Lottery Official Mobile app to check.

“I see it says $2 million and I’m thinking, ‘Is this right?’” recalled Sun. “Then I go back to check my numbers again and I go, ‘Oh, it is!’”

Sun’s $3 Power Play ticket matched the numbers on the five white balls, 8-12-19-47-58, beating odds of 1 in 11.6 million.

He claimed his prize Friday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $1,415,001.00.

“I think the first thing my wife is thinking is if the kids want to buy a house or something, we can help,” said Sun of his plans for his prize money. “That’s the big thing.”

No one won Saturday’s Powerball jackpot. The jackpot climbs to $56 million as an annuity prize or $44.1 million cash for Wednesday’s drawing.

Powerball is one of four lottery games in North Carolina where players have the option of buying their tickets either through the lottery’s website or with the NC Lottery Official Mobile App. The other games are Mega Millions, Lucky For Life, and Carolina Cash 5.

Ticket sales from draw games like Powerball make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million per year for education. For details on how $2.6 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Davie County in 2019, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.