NC woman to buy dream car after life-changing $10m win

• A Chatham County woman won the first top prize from the North Carolina Education Lottery’s 500X The Cash ticket for a $10m payday
• Thanks to her newfound fortune, the woman will buy her dream car and pay for her daughter’s wedding
• Four more top prizes of $10m each remain in play from the $50 scratch-off ticket

An incredibly fortunate woman beat the odds of 1 in 3.2m to win a life-changing prize and will now buy her dream car.

That’s the story of a Chatham County mom who scored one of the top prizes from the North Carolina Education Lottery’s 500X The Cash ticket.

$50 ticket brings life-changing prize

The lucky woman, a Goldston resident and a middle school teacher for over two decades, decided to give the 500X The Cash ticket a try.

She purchased her $50 scratch-off from the Murphy Express on New Chatham Road in Siler City.

Surprisingly, this $50 scratch-off brought her a life-changing $10m top prize.

After the woman scratched off the ticket and saw the top prize, she kept staring at the ticket.

"I kept looking at it thinking, ‘This can’t be,’" the lucky woman said when recalling the moment of the win in an interview with a Lottery official.

To win the first top prize from the 500X The Cash ticket, the woman beat the odds of 1 in 3,261,006.

Arriving at the North Carolina Education Lottery headquarters, the fortunate woman had a difficult choice to make.

She could choose to receive a one-time lump sum of $6m, or collect the entire $10m prize via annuity payments of $500,000 a year for 20 years.

As is the case for many lottery players, the Goldston woman selected the lump sum option and, after the relevant federal and state taxes, saw her bank account increase by $4,320,614.

Not unexpectedly, the fortunate player already has plans for her newfound fortune.

She explained that she has been dreaming of owning a BMW convertible since she was 16 years old, and now, thanks to the life-changing scratch-off prize, she will finally treat herself.

"Our daughter just got engaged and after I won I said, ‘I found a way to pay for the wedding," the lucky player added.

Many more prizes remain in play from 500X The Cash ticket

The North Carolina Education Lottery rolled out the 500X The Cash ticket on January 30, 2026.

Each $50 ticket grants players a chance to win a prize from $50 up to $10m.

After the lucky Chatham County woman’s win, four more top prizes remain in play from the popular ticket.

The scratch-off also offers tier-two and tier-three prizes of $250,000 and $50,000, respectively.

A range of other prizes smaller in size remain in play from the $50 ticket, and the overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 3.33.

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