Lottery player wins $500 — then scores life-changing prize in NC. ‘Go big or go home’
A lottery player won $500 — then scored an even bigger prize in North Carolina.
“Go big or go home,” James Vandling told the N.C. Education Lottery after he tried his luck on a second ticket that was worth $1 million.
Now Vandling, a grandfather from Alamance County, is planning for a “dream vacation.”
“I’m going to take my kids and grandkids to Disney World,” he told lottery officials in a Nov. 18 news release. “We’ve never done that before.”
Vandling hit the jackpot after he went to a store with another goal in mind. He said his nephew wanted a Gatorade, so the two stopped at the Hawfield General Store in Mebane, a roughly 30-mile drive east from Greensboro.
As his nephew got the drink, Vandling bought a scratch-off ticket for the $10 Million Spectacular game. He won $500 and decided to play the game another time.
“I kept telling people I was going to win big one day,” Vandling said.
His prediction proved to be spot-on when the second $50 ticket led to a big windfall. Though lottery officials have told McClatchy News that most big winners choose the lump sum option for their prizes, Vandling went a different route.
Vandling could have taken his prize as a lump sum of $600,000, but he decided to split his $1 million win into payments he will receive over the next two decades. He already received the first of his $50,000 annual payments, which totaled $35,764 after taxes, officials said.
This story was originally published November 18, 2024 at 12:33 PM with the headline "Lottery player wins $500 — then scores life-changing prize in NC. ‘Go big or go home’."
