Gary Warren Jr. of Rural Hall lay in bed Friday morning playing digital instant games when all of a sudden his voice changed dramatically when he won a $520,690 jackpot.
“I just started walking around the house with a really high-pitched voice,” he laughed.
Warren played for $5 and won the top level “Alakazam” jackpot in The Lamp: Dark Arts, a digital instant game featuring a progressive jackpot that can be won at any time. The odds of that win were 1 in 12.9 million.
“I called my wife to tell her and when she heard my high-pitched voice, she knew that I won,” Warren recalled.
He claimed his prize Thursday at lottery headquarters. After required federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $373,597.
Warren, a football coach for over 20 years, plans to use his winnings to invest, buy his daughter a car, and donate some money to the youth football organization that he works with in Pfafftown.
In The Lamp: Dark Arts, a player can play from 50 cents to $30. After Warren won the jackpot, it restarted at $100,000 and stands at over $123,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
Digital instant games are played exclusively online on the lottery’s website or on the NC Lottery Official Mobile App. Fifty-nine different games are available to play online now.
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