It was the easiest payday that master carpenter Jerry Hicks ever made—and the biggest too.
He must have thought it was his lucky day when he stopped outside a convenience store and noticed $20 dollars on the ground. He didn’t know the half of it.
Hicks, from Banner Elk, North Carolina, took the $20 and walked into the Speedway on state Highway 105 in Boone on Tuesday evening and bought an Extreme Cash scratch-off, officials said.
Hicks said that the Speedway didn’t have the lottery game he preferred to play, so bought a different one he was unfamiliar with.
It’s interesting how all these little choices can seem so consequential when the result was that Mr. Hicks won a million dollars with the ticket he bought.
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“We are going to head straight to Golden Corral and eat everything they’ve got,” he laughed, speaking with North Carolina Education Lottery officials.
Offered the choice of an annuity of $50,000 over 20 years or a lump sum of $600,000, he chose the single payout and took home $429,007 after taxes.
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Hicks said he plans to use his winnings to retire after working as a carpenter for 56 years, and using what’s left after that (and Golden Corral) to even better support his children.
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