A middle school teacher from Goldston walked into North Carolina Education Lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Thursday and walked out with a check for $4,320,614, the after-tax remainder of a $10 million scratch-off prize she says she still can hardly believe she won. Jena Johnson, who has taught for more than 20 years, bought the winning $50 “500X The Cash” ticket at a Murphy Express convenience store on New Chatham Road in Siler City.
Johnson said she could not believe the winning ticket when she scratched it off, according to ABC11 News. She opted for a $6 million lump-sum payout rather than a $500,000 annual annuity spread over 20 years, a choice that triggered immediate state and federal withholdings. North Carolina's flat individual income tax rate dropped to 3.99% for 2026, and combined with the mandatory 24% federal withholding on prizes over $5,000, that meant an automatic 27.99% deduction — $1,679,386 — was taken out before she ever saw the money, according to the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
With the money in hand, Johnson says she is finally getting the car she has wanted since she was 16 years old: a BMW convertible. She also told lottery officials she found a way to pay for her daughter's wedding after her daughter got engaged, the station's report notes.
A Lucky Store With a History
The Murphy Express location where Johnson bought her ticket isn't a stranger to big scratch-off wins. Back in June 2020, the same store sold a $20 scratch-off ticket that won Chatham County resident Leonard Bowers a $4 million top prize on the “$10,000 Loaded” game, according to the NC Education Lottery. Bowers ultimately chose a $2.4 million lump-sum payout from that win.
Retailers that sell winning tickets don't walk away empty-handed either. Under lottery rules, stores earn a standard 7% commission on ticket sales and receive a $10,000 retailer bonus for selling an instant scratch-off ticket that wins a top prize of $1 million or more. That bonus system has helped North Carolina's more than 7,000 lottery retailers collectively earn over $181 million in commissions in a single fiscal year.
Steep Odds on a Record-Setting Game
The $50 “500X The Cash” scratch-off debuted on January 30, 2026, launching with overall winning odds of 1 in 3.33 and more than $672 million in total prizes across all tiers. The game started out with five $10 million top prizes and ten $250,000 second-tier prizes. With Johnson's win claimed, the game now has four $10 million prizes and seven $250,000 prizes still unclaimed.
Johnson isn't the first person to cash in big on this particular game. In July, Johnston County resident Kevin Pavel claimed one of the ten $250,000 second-tier prizes after buying a “500X The Cash” ticket at a Mobil store in Morrisville, receiving $180,039 after tax withholdings — a win previously covered by Hoodline.
What Lottery Dollars Actually Fund
Johnson's profession adds an ironic wrinkle to her win. Although North Carolina lottery proceeds support school construction, pre-K programs, and non-instructional support staff like custodians and bus drivers, state law does not permit lottery funds to directly pay the base salaries of public classroom teachers like Johnson herself — a point of frequent public confusion that recent reporting from WLOS ABC 13 has tried to clear up.
The North Carolina Education Lottery closed fiscal year 2026 with record numbers: $7.1 billion in total ticket sales, more than $5.5 billion awarded in player prizes, and $1.14 billion contributed to public education programs. It marked the fourth consecutive year that state lottery transfers to education topped $1 billion.
Yet those headline totals mask a shift in where the money actually goes. State financial audit reviews found that even as total lottery sales surged past $6.6 billion in fiscal year 2025, the share of proceeds directed to education fell from 23% in 2023 to just 16% in 2025, driven by rapid growth in digital instant games that pay out higher prize percentages, according to the Carolina Journal. State Auditor Dave Boliek launched a full performance audit in response to flat education transfers despite the sales boom.
Even with that shrinking share, lottery-backed funding has left a visible mark on school infrastructure statewide. Through the Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund created in 2017, North Carolina has distributed more than $2.4 billion in lottery-backed grants to help smaller and economically distressed counties build and renovate school facilities, with $458 million awarded across 17 counties in fiscal year 2025 alone, per the NC Education Lottery.
When ticket sales began back in March 2006, the biggest top prize available on a North Carolina scratch-off was $100,000. Twenty years later, $50 tickets like the one Johnson bought in Siler City now carry $10 million top prizes — a jump that mirrors how annual player prize payouts grew from $451 million in 2006 to over $4.9 billion by 2025.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)
