Lottery player thought he won $10 in North Carolina. The truth left him ‘flabbergasted’
A lottery player thought he won $10 — then the truth left him “flabbergasted.”
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” $100,000 prize winner Anthony Dudley told the North Carolina Education Lottery. “It blew my mind.”
Dudley hit the jackpot after he spent $20 to play the Win Big game. He bought his lucky scratch-off ticket while getting food at Stallion Tobacco and Vape in Angier, a roughly 20-mile drive south from Raleigh.
“I just stopped to get a snack, and somehow my hunger pains turned into fortune,” Dudley told lottery officials in a Feb. 18 news release.
When Dudley first checked his ticket, he missed some key details.
“I saw the one and zero so I thought it was $10,” he said. “When I realized how much it was, I was flabbergasted.”
The $100,000 prize was the real deal, and the lucky winner kept $71,756 after taxes. He is from Smithfield, a roughly 30-mile drive southeast from Raleigh.
“A win like this can change your whole outlook,” Dudley told lottery officials. “I’m just tickled to death.”
It’s not the first time a snack run has led to a huge prize. Another North Carolina lottery player planned to get food and a drink when he bought a lottery ticket that made him richer, McClatchy News reported in 2023.
This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Lottery player thought he won $10 in North Carolina. The truth left him ‘flabbergasted’."
