Winner a mystery for lottery ticket worth nearly $700,000 sold at store near Charlotte

A lottery ticket worth nearly $700,000 was sold in Concord, and the N.C. Education Lottery still doesn’t know who bought it.

The $10 Jackpot 7s ticket was sold Friday at the Circle K convenience store on Poplar Tent Road, about 20 miles north of Charlotte, lottery officials said in a news release.

The ticket is worth $691,417 before state and federal taxes, the lottery said. Winners have the option of taking the prize in a lump sum or spread over a series of years.

“The winner has 180 days to claim the prize at any lottery office,” officials said in the release. “The odds of winning a Fast Play jackpot are one in 240,000.”

If left unclaimed, lottery prizes will eventually be divided in half, with half going to the Education Lottery Fund and half going “to enhance prizes” in other lottery games, according to state law.

The $10 Jackpot 7’s game is one of six Fast Play games the lottery introduced in September. It has a “rolling, progressive jackpot” that grows with each ticket sold, according to the lottery. “The jackpot starts at $20,000 and keeps on rolling until it is won.”

How much a winner gets depends on how much they spend: A $2 ticket gets 20% of the money, a $5 ticket gets 50% and a $10 ticket gets the entire jackpot.

This story was originally published November 9, 2020 at 6:40 AM with the headline "Winner a mystery for lottery ticket worth nearly $700,000 sold at store near Charlotte."