RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCT) — When Greensboro resident Maria Baquiran Moreno heard she won $1 million in a second-chance drawing, her emotions came pouring out.
“I was sobbing,” she recalled. “It was overwhelming.”
Moreno found out she won the grand prize in the Feb. 13 $10 Million Spectacular Second Chance drawing when she got a phone call from the lottery. There were more than one million entries in the drawing.
“When I started crying my kids thought something was wrong,” Moreno laughed.
She said she likes to keep her scratch-offs and enter them into second-chance drawings.
“I always tell people to do the second chance because you never know,” Moreno said. “I’m the walking example of that.”
When Moreno arrived to collect her winnings Monday, she had a decision to make. She could choose to receive her prize as an annuity of $50,000 over 20 years or a lump sum of $600,000. After required state and federal tax withholdings, took home $429,000.
Moreno said she plans to use her winnings to pay off her mortgage and possibly take a family trip to Japan.