Lottery winner took lucky NC ticket everywhere — ‘even to the bathroom and to sleep’

A North Carolina lottery winner kept her lucky ticket close — even taking it “to the bathroom and to sleep.”

“I couldn’t believe I won,” Sabrina Bottoms told the N.C. Education Lottery after the ticket scored her a $1 million prize.

Bottoms, who works in a warehouse, bought the winning ticket while completing her weekly routine. Each week, she plays the lottery and fills her tank with gas, lottery officials said Sept. 27 in a news release.

This time around, Bottoms stopped at Park N Shop in Conway, roughly 110 miles northeast of Raleigh. While at the Northampton County store, officials said she spent $10 on a scratch-off ticket for the Hamilton game.

Bottoms was in her car when she scratched off the ticket — and made a call to her cousin.

“I had to get someone else to check the ticket,” Bottoms said in the release.

After discovering she was a jackpot winner, she didn’t let the scratch-off go far.

“The ticket went everywhere I went,” Bottoms told lottery officials. “Even to the bathroom and to sleep.”

Bottoms eventually cashed in on the prize, the highest won in the Hamilton game. She took the money in a lump sum of $600,000, which totaled $426,063 after taxes.

Bottoms, a Northampton County resident, wants to put the extra cash toward a “dream home,” officials said.

Though Bottoms hit the jackpot while doing her regular routine, others have scored big while switching things up.

In June, officials said a North Carolina chef bought a winning ticket while visiting a different store than usual.

And in South Carolina, a man was stopping at a new store when he snagged a ticket worth $200,000, McClatchy News reported in January.

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