‘Meant to be.’ North Carolina man buys lottery ticket on a whim and wins a big prize

Mitchell Willetts
·1 min read

A Nash County man was heading home for the day when he decided on a whim to “swing by” a local store and buy a lottery ticket — and he walked out a $100,000 winner, North Carolina Education Lottery officials said.

John Bunn of Bailey bought a $25 Extreme Cash ticket from the On The Run store on Bloomery Road.

“I just happened to pick that one at the right time,” Bunn said.

When he scratched his ticket and read the numbers, at first he “didn’t believe it,” Bunn told lottery officials.

“I just thought I was reading the wrong numbers,” he said. “I definitely didn’t think I won.”

He stopped by the lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Monday to pick up his prize, a total of $70,757 after taxes.

Bunn plans to put the money toward paying off his home.

“It’s kind of unreal,” he said. “It’s just one of those things that’s meant to be.”