Patrick Burdick of Charlotte was on his way to pick up a prescription at his grocery store when he stopped to try his luck at a lottery vending machine in the store, and found a $1 million prize waiting for him.

Sitting outside the store in his car, Burdick scratched his $10 ticket and first revealed a “MIL’ then a “$1” in front of it. When he saw the “$1MIL” he said he knew then his ticket, purchased at the Harris Teeter on John J Delaney Drive, was worth $1 million.

“I thought to myself, ‘My life just changed,’” Burdick recalled Wednesday at lottery headquarters. “It was like a dream because I had dreamt of that moment.”

Burdick, a private mortgage banker, said he planned to pay off his car and all his bills and then invest the rest. “I just got a free retirement,” he said.

He had the choice of taking the $1 million as an annuity of 20 payments of $50,000 a year or a lump sum of $600,000. He opted for the lump sum and took home $424,503 after required state and federal tax withholdings.

The Power 10s game launched in July with four top prizes of $1 million. One top prize remains to be won in the game.

Ticket sales from scratch-off games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million a year for education. For details on how $59.5 million made a difference in Mecklenburg County in 2019, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s