A North Carolina truck driver is reaping the benefits of following your intuition after winning big in the state lottery.
Jeffery Coleman purchased three two dollar “Lucky for Life” lottery tickets just before the drawing closed on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, he woke up to an email notifying him that he had won the second place jackpot – $25,000 a year for life. The odds of winning the prize are 1 in 1.8 million.
“I don’t normally play Lucky For Life,” said Coleman to NC Education Lottery. “I just happened to buy three tickets right before the drawing closed – lucky feeling, I guess!”
Coleman says that he didn’t believe the email at first, so he walked away from the computer. When he returned, the winning message was the same, so he began to come around to the idea of his massive winnings.
“I didn’t believe it at first,” said Coleman. “I thought maybe it was a mistake, so I logged off my account and went about my day. When I logged back on, it still said I was winner, so I knew something had to be going on.”
Coleman collected his prize on Tuesday, December 29th. He was given the option of $25,000 every year for life, or a lump sum of $390,000. Coleman went with the lump sum, and walked away with $275,926 after federal and state taxes. He says he plans on saving and investing his winnings.