Double the luck: North Carolina man wins big in the lottery – twice

Christopher Mills of Winterville, North Carolina is thanking his lucky stars after he won not one, but two, six-figure lottery prizes in a little over two years. 

Mills was the winner of a $200,000 grand prize in a “second-chance” drawing, the North Carolina Education Lottery said in a February 8 release. 

This was Mills’ second win: he had previously won $100,000 on a scratch-off ticket in December 2021. 

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“I can’t believe lightning struck twice,” he told the North Carolina Education Lottery. 

The 2023 Multiply the Cash Second Chance drawing was held on February 7. Out of the more than 47 million entries, Mills won the grand prize. 

Mills entered the “Multiply the Cash” drawing by scanning his tickets into his lottery account. Those who scanned tickets were “automatically entered into the drawing,” which is held four times a year.  

He was told about his big win in an email.

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“I was shocked when I got the email, but I was overjoyed,” said Mills. 

After taxes, Mills took home $143,000, said the North Carolina Education Lottery. 

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With his winnings, Mills plans on helping his twin sons pay off their student loan debt. They recently graduated with a master of business administration degrees from Campbell University, said the release.

Fox Business reached out to the North Carolina Education Lottery for any additional comment. 

The North Carolina Education Lottery was created in 2005 and began selling its first games on March 30, 2006, according to its website. The lottery began selling Powerball tickets two months later, on May 30, 2006. 

The first second-chance drawing – the game that Mills won – was held on March 30, 2007, the first anniversary of the lottery’s first sales. 

Since the North Carolina Education Lottery’s creation, sales of tickets and games have raised more than $10 billion for education in North Carolina, according to its website. 

In 2023 alone, the lottery raised more than $1 billion for the state’s schools – making the first time the state’s lottery had crossed the billion-dollar mark in a single fiscal year. 

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