For most people, finding $20 on the ground would by itself make for a lucky day. For Jerry Hicks of Banner Elk, North Carolina, his good luck was just beginning.
Hicks used a $20 bill he found on the ground at a Speedway gas station to purchase an Extreme Cash scratch-off through the North Carolina Education Lottery. That $20 turned into a $1 million prize.
“They actually didn’t have the ticket I was looking for so I bought that one instead,” he said.
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Hicks was given the option of collecting the prize as an annuity of $50,000 over 20 years or taking a $600,000 lump sum. Hicks opted to take the lump sum, meaning after tax, he would collect $429,007. Still, not a bad way to turn $20 found on the ground into a major payout.
“We are going to head straight to Golden Corral and eat everything they’ve got,” he said in a press release.
Hicks has worked as a carpenter for 56 years. He said he is going to use his winnings to retire.
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According to the lottery, the odds of winning Extreme Cash's top prize of $1 million is one in 2,017,650. The lottery says that there were nine $1 million Extreme Cash tickets printed. Of those, eight have been claimed.
