Man wins Corvette and cash thanks to a birthday NC lottery ticket. ‘I’m thinking red’
A North Carolina man was given a $5 lottery ticket as a birthday gift this week and ended up winning a Corvette Stingray and $100,000 on the side.
It’s unclear if Steven Hair of Troy actually wanted a Corvette at age 66, but he’s taking it anyway. Who wouldn’t?
“You can’t get a better birthday,” Hair said in a new release from the N.C. Education Lottery. “I don’t think it can be topped!”
His prize counts as the first time the state lottery has offered a Corvette as a prize in one of its scratch-off games, officials said. Winners faced odds of 1 in 1.5 million, according to the lottery website.
The game, called Corvette & Cash, affords winners the chance to pick the 2021 model (or whatever model is available), and “their favorite options,” officials said. A Corvette Stingray with all the bells and whistles can cost “up to $109,600,” the lottery says.
“I’m thinking red,” Hair joked, referring to his color choice for the car. “This is the ultimate prize. “
Hair was celebrating his birthday Monday with friends when his “partner at the Montgomery County Humane Society” handed him a couple of lottery tickets from a Quik Chek in Asheboro, according to the release.
He scratched them off after they finished dinner, discovered he was a winner and drove to lottery office in Raleigh the next day to claim his prize.
The $100,000 was trimmed to $70,751 after state and federal taxes, lottery officials said.
“I’m thinking about buying a new house with part of that,” Hair said in the release.
They Corvette & Cash game has three more top prizes still to be won, according to the lottery website.
“I’m thinking red,” said Steven Hair of his sportscar color of choice. Hair received the gift of a lifetime when he won a Corvette Stingray and $100,000 on his 66th birthday! “You can’t get a better birthday,” he said. Congrats, Steven! #NCLottery https://t.co/Ok6GvyKJ7X pic.twitter.com/VSacguClBd
— NC Education Lottery (@nclottery) July 14, 2021