He plays ‘Halloween tricks’ on his mom each year. But his NC lottery win was no joke
A North Carolina man plays “Halloween tricks” on his mother — but his recent lottery win was no joke.
Now, the winner said he plans to spoil his mom with a trip to Hawaii.
“That’s the only place she’s never been,” Ralph Mayton Jr. told the N.C. Education Lottery. “And she deserves it, so I want to take her.”
Mayton scored a $266,982 prize after he spent $20 on a ticket for the Fast Play jackpot game. Earlier that day, he said he was heading into a BP gas station in Graham and saw a “lucky penny” on the ground.
“I always hear it’s good luck if it’s laying heads up and darn it if I don’t believe it now,” Mayton said in a Nov. 1 news release. “I still got it in my pocket right now and I’m keeping it forever.”
But Mayton usually plays tricks on his mom for Halloween, and she didn’t think his lottery win was the real deal. The prize amount also made her son surprised.
“I had no idea that I won the extra $200,000,” Mayton told officials. “My heart almost stopped I was so excited.”
Mayton, who works as a mechanic, kept $190,230 after taxes. He is from Graham, an Alamance County town roughly 25 miles east of Greensboro.
It’s not the first time a big North Carolina jackpot win left a lottery player’s parent in disbelief. Another winner said she tearfully told her mom about her prize — but “she thought I was playing,” McClatchy News reported in October.
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This story was originally published November 1, 2023 at 12:12 PM with the headline "He plays ‘Halloween tricks’ on his mom each year. But his NC lottery win was no joke."
