iStockphoto
A 41-year-old woman from Shelby, North Carolina might be the luckiest person on the planet.
That is because last week it was revealed that she won $2 million playing a scratch-off lottery ticket just two months after winning a $1 million prize playing a different scratch-off lottery game.
“I was like, ‘No way this happened again,’” Kenya Sloan said. “But it did.”
Yes it did. She won $1 million playing the Carolina Jackpot game, then two months later won another $2 million on a Diamond Dazzler ticket.
“I was just standing there in shock,” Sloan said. “I just feel blessed. That’s all I can say.”
Of course, this was the first time she had ever played the Diamond Dazzler game.
“I told some of my family members and they couldn’t believe it either,” she said.
Oh, and when she won the $1 million playing the Carolina Jackpot game? Yeah, that was the first time she’d played it too.
Two months after a $1 million win, Kenya Sloan of #Shelby won $2 million on a Diamond Dazzler scratch-off from Esha Food Mart on S. Lafayette St. “I was like, ‘No way this happened again,’” Sloan said. Now she is planning to open a restaurant. #NCLottery https://t.co/gfmC481ZdD pic.twitter.com/b9G8z1jmK8
— NC Education Lottery (@nclottery) January 6, 2023
According to he North Carolina Education Lottery, Sloan purchased land with the money from her first win and has almost finished building her a home.
This time she chose the lump-sum amount of $1.2 million and, after required state and federal tax withholdings, took home $855,006, which she says she will use to open her a soul food restaurant.
Naturally, a whole lot of people commenting about her second big win were quite bitter.
“I’ve been buying quick pick tickets for various draw games online and the same amount of physical tickets in stores and the physical tickets always seem to win and the online quick picks virtually always lose or only pay out minimum prize. Hmmmmm,” one person wrote.
“There’s no way on this earth someone can win top prizes twice in a matter of months without any inside help,” commented another.
“No way on God’s green earth this wasn’t rigged,” claimed another.
Lottery officials replied to all the doubters, “Every ticket has the same chance of winning and no one knows where a big winning ticket might be. It takes a lot of luck to win a big prize no matter where you live or how often you play!”
Kenya Sloan is far from the only ridiculously lucky lottery player
Three lucky people recently won lottery prizes when they really had no business doing so, including one woman who won twice in one day.
One of them, a 70 year-old woman from Newark, Delaware recently won $100,000 playing a scratch-off ticket.
On her way home from visiting Delaware Lottery headquarters to collect her big prize, she stopped at a convenience store and bought three Serious Money scratch-off tickets.
She ended up winning another $300,000.
Back in September, a man won $3 million playing the Virginia lottery three years after his brother won a $1 million prize playing a Lottery scratcher game.
“I couldn’t believe it!” he told Lottery officials when he claimed his prize. “I was like, “No, this can’t be!”
It can, and it was.