‘It Just Feels Great’: Man Shares Experience Of Mega Millions NC Lottery Win

Jan. 27—LELAND — For Anthony Dowe, 2021 was off to a rotten start until it turned around with the help of a winning lottery ticket.

On Saturday, the Leland resident discovered he had won $2 million in Friday night's huge $1 billion Mega Millions lottery drawing — just hours after he had run into some bad luck.

"I hit two deer with my brand new car," Dowe said in a release from the N.C. Education Lottery. "So, I just got mad, went back home, got into bed and went to sleep. Then I woke up and checked my tickets. I checked the fourth ticket and I saw the "4" and then the next number and the next number and the next number."

To win, his Megaplier ticket matched the numbers on all five white balls, which beat 1 in 12.6 million odds. It won him a $1 million prize, which was doubled to $2 million when the 2X Megaplier was drawn.

Dowe, who works in shipping and receiving, bought his winning $3 Quick Pick ticket at the Minuteman Food Mart on Mercantile Drive in Leland.

He claimed his prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, taking home $1,415,001 after required federal and state tax withholdings.

He said he immediately told his parents, who were "very happy" and is now figuring out what he's going to do with his life-changing winnings, apart from putting it in savings.

"It just feels great," Dowe said in the release. "I'm just gonna fix things on my mother and father's house, and get my car fixed, pay it off and pay my niece's car off."

For those who want to try their hand at following in Dowe's footsteps, the jackpot for Tuesday's Mega Millions drawing stands at $20 million as an annuity prize or $14.7 million cash.

The odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302.5 million.

Reporter Hunter Ingram can be reached at 910-343-2327 or [email protected].

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