Sadhana Patel of New Bern took home $ 373,741 in the jackpot, according to a press release from the North Carolina (NC) Education Lottery. She bought her ticket for $ 5 on January 16 and claimed the prize at the lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Monday.
“I was shocked,” Patel said in a statement. ‘I called my kids first and then I told my husband. We were all happy and shocked at the same time. ‘
Since she bought a $ 5 Fast Play ticket, she gets 50% of the jackpot money, under the lottery rules, and took home $ 264,423, net of mandatory federal and state taxes.
I said, ‘I feel like I have something good so let me scan it,’ she recalled. “I realized it said take it to the lottery. Then I realized, ‘I think I’ve hit the jackpot’.”
Patel said she plans to use the prize money to pay some bills and share it with family.
The odds of winning a Fast Play jackpot are 1 in 240,000, according to the NC Lottery.