She Bought Her First Scratch-Off Ever and Won $100,000

Some people study the odds for years and never hit. Kahla Jeffries of Gastonia bought a scratch-off for the first time in her life and won $100,000.

She had stopped for gas in North Carolina and decided, on the spot, to try a ticket. "That one just caught my eye," she recalled. The ticket was a $100,000 Cash Payday, bought at Will's Food Store on Hickory Grove Road in Gastonia, and it carried the game's top prize.

Her reaction was the same one most winners describe. "I didn't think I was looking at it right," Jeffries laughed.

She claimed the prize at lottery headquarters on Friday and, after required state and federal tax withholdings, took home $72,018. That gap between the $100,000 on the ticket and the check is straightforward tax withholding rather than any kind of discount, something we walk through in how lottery winnings are taxed. She plans to buy a car and save for school.

Beginner's Luck?

Beginner's luck makes the headline, but the game she happened to grab is genuinely interesting. Most scratch-offs carry a small number of top prizes, often three to ten, which is why hitting one is such a long shot even in a good game. $100,000 Cash Payday launched in March with 80 top prizes of $100,000.

That changes the shape of the game. A pool of 80 top prizes spread across the print run means the biggest prize in the game is far more attainable than the usual setup, even though it is smaller than the seven-figure prizes other tickets dangle. And after Jeffries' claim, 58 of those 80 are still out there, so most of the top-prize money has not been won.

How the game scores

The rest of the ticket backs it up. The $30 game rates 83.6 on our ValueScore™, in our Excellent range, with a 77.9% payout percentage and overall odds of 1 in 3.49, meaning better than one in four tickets wins something.

That combination, a strong score plus a deep stack of top prizes still unclaimed, is exactly what makes a game worth buying into, and it is the kind of thing you can check before you hand over your money rather than after. You can see which games are in that position in our roundup of North Carolina scratch-offs with the most top prizes left, or compare the whole shelf on our North Carolina page.

Sources

North Carolina Education Lottery: Gaston County woman buys first ever lottery ticket and wins $100,000