Finding $20 in a gas station parking lot seemed like a good enough sign for Jerry Hicks of North Carolina to buy a scratch-off lottery ticket last month. As it turns out, his instincts were correct – that purchase got him $1 million.
It was the evening of Tuesday, Oct. 22 when Hicks, a master carpenter from Banner Elk, spotted the cash, according to the NC Education Lottery.
“I found $20 in the parking lot outside the Speedway,” on N.C. 105 in Boone, he explained. It inspired him to buy a scratch off ticket, but they didn’t have the one he usually picked. That led Hicks to buy a fated Extreme Scratch Off ticket.
While Hicks could have decided to receive the prize as an annuity of $50,000 annually over the next 20 years, he chose a lump sum of $600,000 instead. After state and federal taxes, he took home $429,007.
As for his plans for the money, Hicks knew exactly what he was going to invest his luck in first: a buffet feast
“We are going to head straight to Golden Corral and eat everything they’ve got,” he laughed. After that, he’ll use the funds to kick-start his retirement after nearly 60 years working as a carpenter and to help out his children.
While Hicks was a particularly lucky lottery player, the Mega Millions lottery hoped to make winning a bit easier for everyone this year with changes to the game, per an Audacy report. Other lottery winners we’ve covered this year include the report of an Illinois man and his children winning $1 million after they picked numbers that honored his late wife and a regular customer at a South Jersey convenience store who won a $221 million Powerball grand prize.