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Wilkes man wins $400,000 in lottery
by Staff
(Photo caption) Chris Jones of North Wilkesboro holds his lottery check for $400,000.
A North Wilkesboro man won $400,000 in a "Powerball" drawing Saturday night, said N.C. Lottery officials.
Chris Jones of Morrisfield Lane said that when he checked the lottery website about 6:30 a.m. Sunday, he thought he had won $200,000.
Jones, 44, learned it was $400,000 when he went to the N.C. Lottery office in Raleigh on Monday. The normal payout is $200,000, but Jones doubled his money by playing the Powerball multiplier.
“They took me to a back room, checked my ID and if I owed child support payments or anything like that,” he said.
Jones then was given a check for $272,000, which was the total minus state and federal taxes. His photo was also taken at the lottery office.
He had one of three tickets with numbers that matched all five balls in the game. The two other winning tickets were each worth $200,000. One was sold in Clinton and the other in Raleigh.
Jones was about to deposit his lottery winnings in a bank when interviewed Tuesday morning.
“Right now I just plan to use it to pay my house mortgage off and go on vacation to Myrtle Beach,” he said, adding that the beach trip with his family was already planned.
“The way the economy is now, I just plan to keep most of it,” Jones added. “My family is just tickled to death.”
He and his wife, Jill, have two children, a daughter who is 16 and a son who is 10. Jones is self-employed as the owner of apartments.
Jones said he was in Lenoir with his father, on Thursday when he bought 10 “Powerball” chances for $2 each at a convenience store on Holiday To Go store on Connelly Springs Road in Lenoir.
He said he entered the store for a cup of coffee and to use the bathroom and decided to try “Powerball” while waiting to pay for the coffee.
“I asked (the clerk) how much was in the big one,” he said, referring to the largest amount that could be won in “Powerball.”
“I had never played that before, but I had probably done ‘Scratch-Off’ about 20 times in my life.”
The last time he played “Scratch-Off,” which was several months ago, he won $500 and $100 within the same week.
An N.C. Lottery spokesman said Powerball winnings come from what is paid by people to play the game in 31 states, while winnings in other N.C. Lottery games are only from what is paid by North Carolina participants.
The spokesman said lottery operating funds and lottery money for school systems in the state also comes from lottery ticket sales proceeds. |
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