Lottery player dreaming of retirement wins life-changing prize in NC. ‘This is crazy’
A lottery player had dreams of retirement — then she scored a $1 million win in North Carolina.
Now, the life-changing prize will make it possible for Veronica Cunningham to retire before the end of the year.
“This is crazy,” the prize winner, who lives in Charlotte, told the N.C. Education Lottery in a March 31 news release. “It’s just wild.”
Cunningham got richer after she bought a $50 scratch-off ticket for the $10 Million Spectacular game. She had spent years entering her lottery tickets into second-chance drawings, with hopes of winning one day.
Her efforts finally paid off when she beat out more than 1.9 million other entries to score the top prize in the game’s second-chance drawing. It’s taken time for her to process the big win.
“It still hasn’t set in yet that this is real,” Cunningham told lottery officials.
The winner chose to take her prize as a lump of $600,000, which totaled $430,500 after taxes. In addition to putting money toward retirement, she plans to finish paying for her house.
Recently, another North Carolina lottery winner also had retirement in mind. The lucky player, a teacher of more than 30 years, won $1 million in a different second-chance drawing, McClatchy News reported in March.
This story was originally published April 1, 2025 at 3:09 PM with the headline "Lottery player dreaming of retirement wins life-changing prize in NC. ‘This is crazy’."
