A North Carolina man got the surprise of a lifetime when he tried to cash in a $600 winning lottery ticket only to learn that he’d won nearly $600,000.
Joshua Locklear of Pembroke purchased a $10 50X The Cash ticket at the Pembroke Mini Mart on June 5th. Initially, he thought he’d landed a $600 prize. He went to the lottery headquarters in Raleigh to retrieve his winnings but was informed by lottery officials that he’d won the grand prize of $585,949, leaving the 32-year-old stunned.
“When I heard, I was like, ‘There’s no possible way I actually hit the jackpot.’ I couldn’t believe it,” Locklear stated. After taxes, he took home a lump sum of $416,085.
Locklear says the prize money dropped into his lap “at the right time.” He will be using the money to purchase himself a home and a car, with the remaining going towards helping his community.
The North Carolina Education Lottery congratulated Locklear in a tweet on Tuesday. According to the organization, the odds of winning a Fast Play jackpot are just 1 in 320,000.
