Huge jackpot winner comes forward with NC lottery ticket that only cost 50 cents

It took a week, but the mystery person who won $461,435 on a 50-cent ticket in the North Carolina Education Lottery has come forward to claim her money.

Cynthia Karcher of Raleigh beat odds of 1-in-62 million when she won the jackpot in Wheel of Bonuses, a digital game with a jackpot that grows until someone wins, lottery officials said in a news release.

She picked up her money at lottery headquarters on Friday, May 9, and the prize came to $331,080 after state and federal tax withholdings, officials said.

The win came at just the right time because Karcher is retired and has time to enjoy spending an unexpected windfall of cash, officials said.

So what’s her big plan?

“I would like to take a trip to Greenland, Australia, and New Zealand,” Karcher told lottery officials.

A timetable for those trips was not revealed, but in the meantime Karcher revealed she has a far less ambitious idea — to remodel her bathroom, lottery officials said.

Anything leftover will go into savings, she told officials.

Wheel of Bonuses is played exclusively online, and tickets range from 50 cents to $30. The jackpot restarts at $50,000 when someone wins, officials said.

This story was originally published May 12, 2025 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Huge jackpot winner comes forward with NC lottery ticket that only cost 50 cents."