First-time lottery player picked ticket because it ‘looked pretty’ — and won big in NC
A first-year UNC Wilmington student treated herself to her first-ever lottery ticket on her 19th birthday.
Her strategy for picking her ticket? Get the one with the prettiest colors, she said, according to North Carolina lottery officials.
Her pick paid off — and she won $100,000.
Laniah Ashley, from Clinton, was celebrating her birthday with her grandparents at a Chinese restaurant on March 9, a news release said.
After dinner, she stopped to buy a $20 “100x The Cash” scratch-off, lottery officials said.
“It was my first time ever buying a ticket,” Ashley said. “I thought the colors on the ticket looked pretty so I chose that one.”
When she got back to her grandparents’ house and finally scratched her birthday ticket to realize she won, she said she was “too stunned to speak,” according to the release.
“I kept looking at the numbers and reading the rules over and over again,” Ashley said.
Ashley told lottery officials that she first kept the results to herself, afraid she was going to “sound crazy.”
“I was too excited to believe it was true,” she added.
The student is a biology major who plans to attend medical school. She said she plans to use that money toward paying for her studies, “and help out her grandparents as well,” the release said.
On March 10 she collected her prize money — $71,016 after taxes, lottery officials said.
This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 4:16 PM with the headline "First-time lottery player picked ticket because it ‘looked pretty’ — and won big in NC."
