ALBEMARLE — After two decades of playing the Powerball, Grace Landon’s persistence has finally paid off.
The Albemarle resident recently kicked off the new year with a $1 million win as she struck gold with a lucky $2 Quick Pick lottery ticket purchased at the Friendly Mart on NC 24/27 West Bypass in Albemarle.
Facing one-in-11.7 million odds, Landon matched the numbers on all five white balls in the New Year’s Day Powerball drawing and soon found herself at a lottery headquarters in Raleigh to claim her net winnings of $717,501 after federal and state tax withholdings.
Two Powerball tickets won a $1 million prize in the Jan. 1 drawing; the second winning ticket was purchased in Arizona.
Before Landon’s trip to the state capital, she first had to convince her husband, Hank Landon, that her lottery win was legitimate.
“He didn’t believe me at first,” Landon recalled of her husband’s reaction in a statement provided by the NC Education Lottery.
Landon told the state’s lottery program that she wants to use her winnings to purchase a new house and to pay off existing expenses, such as her grandson’s car. As a retired plant nursery worker, she added that she could see herself adding some more plants to her current collection.
Powerball is one of six lottery games in North Carolina where players have the option of buying their tickets at a retail location, online play through the lottery’s website, or with the NC Lottery Official Mobile App.
Monday’s jackpot was $220 million as an annuity or $98.4 million cash, with lottery ticket purchasers facing odds of one-in-292 million.
All 100 counties in the state benefited financially from the $4.4 million raised by the NC Education Lottery last year.