TAYLORSVILLE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Michael Underwood woke up Saturday morning with a plan to relax and play the lottery, but he couldn’t relax for long after hitting a jackpot.
The Taylorsville man won a $1.16 million prize.
“I started shaking for about an hour,” he recalled. “I was in disbelief.”
Underwood played a $2 ticket and won the top-level “gold jackpot” in the Multiplier Mania game, a Digital Instant game featuring a progressive jackpot that can be won at any time. The odds of that win are one-in-20 million.
“I never thought in a million years this would happen,” he said.
Underwood’s big win represents the second largest win since the lottery introduced Digital Instants. He called his son right away to tell him the good news.
“My son thought it was an April Fools’ Day joke,” Underwood laughed. “He had to check to make sure it wasn’t April yet.”
Underwood claimed his prize Thursday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $836,957.
He plans to invest his winnings.
