Retired teacher’s longtime love of bingo leads to lottery prize in North Carolina
A retired teacher is a longtime fan of bingo — and it led her to a six-figure jackpot win in North Carolina.
Katherine Robinson channeled her love for the game when she tried her luck on a Big Bucks Bingo lottery ticket, officials said.
“When I was a teenager I used to go to bingo games with my mother,” she said in a Sept. 29 news release. “I’ve always liked to play bingo, it’s so much fun.”
This time around, the fun led to disbelief when Robinson discovered she won $162,826. Officials said she scored the big prize one day before celebrating her birthday.
“What a great birthday present,” Robinson, now 68 years old, told the N.C. Education Lottery.
The lucky moment came after Robinson went to a Publix supermarket in Apex, southwest of Raleigh. She spent $10 on her Big Bucks Bingo ticket, which beat 1-in-320,000 odds to win the Fast Play rolling jackpot prize, officials said.
“I got so excited I couldn’t even believe it,” Robinson said in the news release.
Robinson, a former middle school teacher living in Wake County, kept $115,626 after taxes. She told the N.C. Education Lottery she plans to put some of the prize money toward windows for her house.
It’s not the first time a lottery win has given someone an early reason to celebrate.
In February, officials said a North Carolina man hit the jackpot a week before his birthday.
And in South Carolina, a woman was about to celebrate her birthday when she treated herself to a lucky lottery ticket, McClatchy News reported in May.
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