When Darron Jones of Raleigh opened his lottery app, he was shocked to be greeted with a notification letting him know he had won a $110,000 jackpot.
After waking up early on Saturday morning, Jones decided to check his phone. “When I saw the email that I had a claim waiting, I was like, ‘Claim?’” he recalled. “My heart started pounding, like, ‘Wait a minute — is this what I think it is?’”
So, Jones decided to log into his NC Lottery Official Mobile App to double check his winnings.
“My heart was beating like a thousand miles an hour,” he said.” I was in shock.”
Jones purchased his winning Quick Pick ticket for Friday’s Cash 5 drawing though Online Play using his NC Lottery Official Mobile App.
He claimed his prize Tuesday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh and took home $77,825 after required federal and state tax withholdings.
With his prize money, Jones plans to save for his children’s future. “Outside of that, we’ll try and do something nice for ourselves,” he said. “A vacation at some point.”
Carolina Cash 5 tickets are $1 and drawings are held every night. Thursday’s jackpot is $342,000. The odds of winning a Cash 5 jackpot are 1 in 962,598.
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.
Ticket sales from draw games such as Cash 5 make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million per year for education. For details on how $62.8 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Wake County last year, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.