NC lottery players win big prizes ahead of Christmas

Christmas came early for one lottery player from Greensville and one from Raleigh after each of them tried their luck with lottery games from the North Carolina Education Lottery.

Big Cash Payout ticket makes Greenville resident rich

On Monday, the Lottery confirmed in a press release that Jeffrey Kettle, a Greenville resident, won one of the top prizes from the popular scratch-off game, Big Cash Payout.

The fortunate man purchased his ticket from Chicod Store on N.C. 43 South in Greenville.

To Kettle's surprise, the $20 ticket turned into a massive $2m top prize win.

While the lottery player did not reveal if he has any plans about the windfall, he will undoubtedly always remember this Christmas.

The odds of winning the top prize from the Big Cash Payout scratch-off game are 1 in 1,598,205.

Still, it was clearly Kettle's lucky day, considering that he scored one of the few remaining top prizes from the game.

At the launch of Big Cash Payout, there were a total of four top prizes of $2m each. However, after the most recent win, only one such top prize remains in play.

The incredibly lucky Greenville man visited the Lottery headquarters Monday to claim his big prize.

Kettle was presented with two options: to collect $1.2m instantly or collect the entire $2m sum over annual installments of $100,000 for the next 20 years.

Not unexpectedly, Kettle selected the former option and after the applicable federal and state taxes, collected a sum of $858,006.

Besides the $2m top prizes, Big Cash Payout offers tier-two prizes of $100,000 each.

The odds of winning a tier-two prize are 1 in 799,102.5, while there are currently only three such prizes remaining in play.

Raleigh player hits Cash 5 jackpot

Besides the winner from Greenville, as noted, a Raleigh player also scored a hefty win only recently.

Again, on Monday, the North Carolina Education Lottery confirmed that Reginald Epps, a player from Youngsville, turned a $1 ticket into a prize of more than half a million dollars.

Epps tried his luck with a $1 Cash 5 ticket he purchased from Rose Mart on N.C. 96 in Youngsville.

To the surprise of the fortunate player, he matched all five winning numbers from the game's drawing on Saturday.

As a result, Epps scored a hefty $633,202 jackpot from Cash 5.

The odds of winning the top prize from this particular game are 1 in 962,598.

Visiting the Lottery headquarters on Monday, Epps collected his big prize.

After the relevant state and federal taxes were applied, the lucky winner went home with $452,741 just in time for the holidays.

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