Nathaniel Geathers of Bennettsville, S.C. stopped to try his luck on a $10 Fast Play ticket during a trip to North Carolina on Thursday and won a jackpot of $153,045.

Geathers, a drywall finisher, said his jackpot will pay off his mortgage, allow him to help some family members in need, and put a new motor on his 21-foot Bayrider.

“It was good,” said Geathers of the moment when he hit the jackpot at Nic’s Pic Kwik on U.S. 401 in Laurinburg. “It was a great feeling to get what I was looking for.”

Geathers said his first ticket won him $20. His second ticket won $15. The third won the jackpot. A $10 Jackpot 7’s Fast Play ticket wins all of the progressive, rolling jackpot. The odds of winning a Fast Play jackpot are 1 in 240,000.

Geathers collected his prize Friday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After state and federal tax withholdings, he took home $108,282.

Ticket sales from Fast Play games help make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $900 million per year for education. For details on how the money raised by the lottery benefits education, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.