'I Always Hoped To Win Something Big': Father Of Two Wins $1 Million Lottery Prize During Commute

Nov 05, 2021 by apost team

While on his way to work this fall, Joshua Helton of Gastonia, North Carolina, made a quick pit stop at the QSC Foodmart in Lowell, a nearby small town. It’s part of his morning routine; he fills up his tank and gets coffee. This time, however, Helton purchased a Spectacular Riches scratcher. Helton was able to trade in the first scratcher for two more scratchers, but those turned out to be duds. But rather than give up, Helton bought one more — and we’re sure he’s thankful he did.

With his third scratcher, Helton won the $1 million Spectacular Riches scratch-off prize.

“It was kind of a great morning!” Helton told North Carolina Education Lottery. “I always hoped to win something big, but I never thought I would hit a million dollars.”

“I walked back out there and pumped my gas, got back in my truck and scratched it off,” Helton added. “I didn’t really know what to do at the time, so I just called my wife and woke her up, told her what was going on.”

Helton raced home to celebrate with his wife before driving to work. The father of two had the choice between two payouts: a $1 million annuity, which would pay $50,000 over 20 years, or a lump sum of $600,000 ($424,507 after taxes).

Helton went for the latter option.

“I’m going to pay off some bills and put some money back for my kids,” Helton told lottery officials. “That way they’ll have something when they get a little older.”

According to The Charlotte Observer, Spectacular Riches costs $25 and includes eight top prizes of $1 million and 20 $100,000 prizes. The odds that players will win something are about 1 and 4.26.

Harvard statistics professor Mark Glickman explains in a piece for CNBC that the only way of increasing your odds of winning the lottery is to buy more tickets for a single game. That means that if you win the lottery, your odds of winning again don’t go up or down. Likewise, buying tickets regularly doesn’t increase your odds because each lottery is independent.

Mark Lefton, a professor of mathematics at Georgia Tech, adds that although buying more tickets might increase your odds of winning, “the investment you make by playing multiple games also goes up and the payouts in a real lottery may vary.”

“My advice is don’t play the lottery and expect to win,” Lefton says. “That said, it can be fun to play the lottery and imagine you win. That’s a different approach, and it’s just like any other gambling: You should only be willing to spend what you can afford to lose.”

One thing that Helton did right is that he took the lump sum rather than the annuity. According to CNBC’s story, experts advise winners to take the lump sum, as it allows you to reinvest the money in long-term stocks.

Another notable lottery story from this November comes out of Maryland, where a retired utility worker won a $2 million lottery for the second time. The man, who has withheld his name, also won in 2018.

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Have you ever won the lottery? What would you do with the money if you won? Let us know — and be sure to pass this story on to others.