NC man discovers big lottery win during food stop. ‘I was so excited, I couldn’t eat’
A man was in a fast-food restaurant’s drive-thru line when he found out he won a big lottery prize, North Carolina officials say.
Kenneth Thigpen was waiting for his dinner at a Zaxby’s when he checked his email, the N.C. Education Lottery said Thursday in a news release. That’s where he read a message telling him he won $100,000 in the Multiply the Cash game, the lottery wrote on Twitter.
“When I got my food, I pulled over into the parking lot and read it again,” Thigpen told officials. “I thought someone was playing a game. I couldn’t believe it.”
The prize was real, and Thigpen went home to tell his wife about it, officials say.
“I was so excited, I couldn’t eat,” he told the lottery.
Thigpen’s good fortune started when he entered his Multiply the Cash ticket into a “second-chance drawing,” officials say. He beat 1-in-14 million odds to snag the top prize of $100,000, according to the news release.
After taxes, Thigpen gets to keep $70,750, the release said.
“I plan on taking vacation as soon as everything’s settled down,” he told the N.C. Education Lottery. “I’m gonna donate to my church and just share it with my kids.”
Thigpen is a retiree who lives in Wilson, roughly 50 miles east of Raleigh. The lottery in its news release didn’t say where he bought his lucky ticket.
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 9:03 AM with the headline "NC man discovers big lottery win during food stop. ‘I was so excited, I couldn’t eat’."
