North Carolina Woman Accidently Wins $736,874 Lottery Prize

Posted on: May 16, 2024, 10:35h. 

Last updated on: May 16, 2024, 06:31h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More
Expertise: Gaming Business, Regulation, Tribal Gaming.

A North Carolina woman has found herself more than half a million dollars richer after buying a digital instant-win ticket completely by accident.

Cynthia Harris, North Carolina Education Lottery, Bison Bonanza, Miriam Long, LaQuedra Edwards
Cynthia Harris believed she was playing the demo version of the North Carolina lottery’s Bison Bonanza game, above. But the progressive jackpot she won was very, very real. (Image: Blueprint Gaming)

The freak win occurred when Cynthia Harris of Cary, NC was messing about on the North Carolina Education Lottery website. Harris believed she was playing the free demo version of the Bison Bonanza game. In fact, she had unwittingly bought a $2 ticket for the game.

This wasn’t just any old ticket, it was the “largest digital instant win since the lottery began offering digital instant games in November,” lottery officials wrote in a May 14 news release.

Harris instantly won $736,874 — $526,866 after taxes – overcoming odds of 15.5 million to one to land the progressive jackpot game’s top prize.

“I was like, ‘Wait how did this just happen?’” said a bewildered Harris. “It still hasn’t set in yet.”

“I am a blessed person,” she confirmed.

Long Shot

Harris isn’t the only blessed person to win the lottery inadvertently. In April, Miriam Long, of Christiansburg, Va., won $1 million after hitting a wrong button, leading to an accidental Powerball ticket purchase.

Long had intended to buy a Mega Millions ticket because the jackpot had climbed to an eye-watering $875 million at that time. Instead, she ended up with a lousy Powerball ticket with some randomly generated numbers.

Fortunately, those numbers matched the first five balls that came out of the lottery machine in that night’s draw.

“It was the best mistake of my life,” reflected Long.

Stranger Danger

But the prize for the flukiest lottery win ever goes to Los Angeles woman LaQuedra Edwards.

In November 2022, Edwards was happily feeding $40 into a lottery ticket vending machine at an LA supermarket when she was bumped by “some rude person,” causing her to push the wrong button.

“He just bumped into me, didn’t say a thing, and just walked out the door,” Edwards complained.

Edwards explained that she usually bought multiple cheaper tickets but ended up with one $30 200X Scratchers ticket. She was annoyed that the stranger had made her drop most of her money on a single ticket, but her mood improved when she scratched off the silkscreen latex to reveal a $30 million prize.

“I almost crashed my car,” she said, although we’re not sure she should have been driving while scratching.

Edwards was able to go out and buy a house, all thanks to her collision with a very rude stranger.