Jasmain Warren of Winston-Salem said she was on the phone with her husband and just started screaming when he told her that her Cash 5 lottery ticket turned into a $470,130 prize.
“He called me and said, ‘Jasmain, you’ve got to get up. I think we hit the jackpot,’” Warren said.
Warren said she did not plan to buy a Cash 5 ticket, but a suggestion from the store clerk at the Exxon on Stratford Road in Winston-Salem changed her mind.
“We stopped in there to play Pick 3,” Warren said. “The clerk said, ‘You better get some Cash 5 tickets too.’ So, we did.”
Warren, a travel nurse, was one of two winners who matched all five numbers to split the jackpot in the Dec. 12 drawing. She arrived at lottery headquarters on Thursday to collect her prize and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $332,618.
Warren said she would put a good amount of the money toward building a new home. She also said her husband is working on a personal trainer license so they might put some of the winnings toward starting a personal training business.
Cash 5 is one of four lottery games in North Carolina where players have the option of buying their tickets through Online Play, either through the lottery’s website or with the NC Lottery Official Mobile App. Cash 5 tickets are $1 and drawings are held every night.
Ticket sales from draw games like Cash 5 make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $900 million per year for education. For details on how $21.2 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Forsyth County in 2020, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.