While getting gas for his lawn mower on Tuesday, Samson Wooten of Rose Hill picked up a hot dog and lottery tickets and got a $200,000 lottery prize on the side.

“I ran out of gas for my mower,” recalled Wooten. “So, I went to the store to get some gas and while I was in the store I grabbed a hot dog and some tickets.”

While at the Friendly Mart off N.C. 41 in Chinquapin, he bought three tickets. He scratched all three right then and there. All three were winners.

“I got a five and a ten,” he said of the first two winning tickets. He said when he scratched his Ruby Mine 9X ticket and saw the amount “my mouth dropped.”

Wooten, who buys and sells livestock, will buy himself another dual rear-wheel truck for work and invest the rest.

“I have always said that if I’m ever blessed with a lump sum of money I would invest it,” he said.

Wooten claimed his prize Wednesday - National Hot Dog Day - at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $141,501.

The $5 game he played launched in June with four $200,000 top prizes. Two of those top prizes remain to be won.

Ticket sales from scratch-off games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million per year for education. For details on how $4 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Duplin County in 2020, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.