Player triumphs over green lottery ticket, pockets $200,000 win
A not-so-ordinary lottery player in North Carolina fancied the appealing green ticket and rashly risked his luck.
Care to guess what happened next? Well, you've got it right! The gutsy Broadway resident won one of the highly sought-after prizes from the North Carolina Education Lottery's Emerald 8s scratch-off ticket.
A life-changing win for a daring player
Several days ago, the lottery authorities revealed the identity of the audacious winner, Lewis Moreland from Broadway, Lee County.
When they chatted with Lottery officials, the maniacal winner vividly depicted the momentous day he discovered his jackpot.
Moreland bought the audacious $5 lottery ticket at Kangaroo Express, nestled on North Main Street in Broadway.
Once he returned home, he figured he'd test his destiny in the kitchen with his wife, mind you. And boy, are they glad they did!
"It was a giant question mark in my head. I was asking myself if I was looking at this right. Could you believe it?!," exclaimed Moreland as he reminisced about the fateful moment he realized he had just grabbed $200,000 from the Emerald 8s scratch-off ticket.
The luckiest man alive added that winning big felt like a jubilation!
Interestingly, Moreland confessed to officials that he purchased the Emerald 8s ticket purely on a whim.
"It was just the green jacket that got my attention," he admitted.
Recently, the lucky millionaire visited the lottery headquarters to claim his stunning victory, only to walk away with $143,501 post-taxes deductions.
When quizzed about his plans for the fortune, the Lee County native said, " I'm thinking of investing my earnings and planning a comfortable retirement."
Two top prizes left to be seized from Emerald 8s
Diving a little deeper, the Emerald 8s game hit the stands in December 2023.
Each ticket will set you back $5 and promises a shot at winning anything between $5 and $200,000.
Contrary to popular belief, the odds of getting ahold of a life-altering $200,000 grand prize such as the one just clinched by Moreland, are a staggeringly remote 1 in 1,224,660.
Though there were initially a total of six top prizes up for grabs, currently, only two remain up for grabs.
The chance to take home the second-tier prize of $10,000 was also on the table but its glory days are long gone, my friend.
Alas, the silver lining is that two $2,000 prizes with odds of 1 in 408,220 are still in play, as well as a plethora of other prizes within the lower tier of this scratch-off game.
With odds of 1 in 4.20 in favor of you, why not give Emerald 8s a go? At the very least, it could be your lucky day!
Image credit: North Carolina Education Lottery
Trivia:
- Did you know that scratch-off lottery tickets originated from Brazil in the 1960s? The Brazilian Carlos Moreira da Silva created the game as an instant lottery to boost funds for charities.
- Florida was the first U.S. state to sell immediate win games, starting in 1974. The state made history when it sold more than $1 million in one minute during the launch of the game called "The $1 Million Bonus Scratch-Off" in 2005.
Sentence 1: The two remaining top prizes of $200,000 from the North Carolina Education Lottery's Emerald 8s scratch-off ticket are yet to be claimed, leaving one daring player to possibly capture another life-changing win.
Sentence 2: With the odds of winning the second-tier prize of $2,000 being 1 in 408,220, the casino-and-gambling scene of North Carolina lotteries remains an alluring draw for big-wins seekers.
