Uber Eats driver uses $10 tip on a lottery ticket — and wins big in North Carolina
Someone’s $10 tip on a takeout order just net a delivery driver in North Carolina $200,000.
Keith Wishon — an Uber Eats driver from Lewisville, about 10 miles west of Winston-Salem in Forsyth County — stopped to fill up his gas tank after a day of driving and bought a lottery ticket with his tip money, lottery officials said Wednesday in a news release.
The scratch-off turned out to be a top prize in the N.C. Education Lottery’s Triple Play game. Wishon took home $141,501 after taxes from lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Monday, officials said.
“I had to sit down, my legs got so weak,” he said after scratching off the ticket at home, according to the release.
Wishon bought the $5 ticket from 4 Brothers gas station on Shallowford Road in Lewisville but waited until he was back at the house he shares with his 93-year-old mother to scratch it off, the release states.
He showed it to his brother and mom — neither of whom could believe he’d won.
“We kept looking at the ticket, checking it and checking it and checking it,” Wishon said in the release.
Players can score anywhere from $5 to $200,000 on the Triple Play game if they scratch off the winning numbers, according to the lottery’s website. The overall chances of winning are 1 in 4.07.
But Wishon had a 1 in 1.2 million chance of taking home the top prize, of which two remain, according to the website.
He said he plans to use the money to fix his home and will put the rest toward his retirement.
“My roof leaks, my water heater’s leaking, plumbing, everything in the house is in real bad shape,” Wishon said in the news release.
Now that will change.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said through “happy tears,” according to the release. “I’m overwhelmed.”
This story was originally published July 29, 2020 at 1:17 PM with the headline "Uber Eats driver uses $10 tip on a lottery ticket — and wins big in North Carolina."
