Struggling carpenter found $20, bought a lottery ticket and won. Now, he’s finally ready to retire

How often does it happen when you find more than you expected while running behind something that does not match your worth? When chasing someone to get a job, many times, we do not realize that our dreams can be below our potential mark. This is when the universe intervenes and takes away what we do not deserve, only to make way for something beyond our imagination. Something similar happened to Jerry Hicks, a master carpenter, as he won the lottery by accident by investing money that was not actually his, per North Carolina Education Lottery.

Hicks, a veteran carpenter hailing from Banner Elk, North Carolina, saw his entire world turn upside down when he accidentally won the lottery. He was having a regular when he found a $20 bill in the parking lot outside Speedway. “I found $20 in the parking lot outside the Speedway,” Hicks said. After wondering what to do with it, he chose to buy himself a lottery ticket with it. “I used that to buy the ticket,” he added. Hicks bought an Extreme Cash scratch-off on October 22, 2024, from the North Carolina Education Lottery, as reported by TODAY.

He purchased the ticket at the Speedway on North Carolina 105 in Boone. He mentioned how he wanted a specific ticket, but they ran out. Due to this small inconvenience, he had to purchase whichever ticket was available. “They actually didn’t have the ticket I was looking for, so I bought that one instead,” he said jokingly. As fate would have it, he won $1 million from the ticket he never chose in the first place.

Hicks verified his ticket at the North Carolina lottery headquarters on October 25, 2024. After that, they gave him two options for claiming his prize money. According to the first option, he would receive $50,000 annually over 20 years. The second option stated that he could claim an entire sum of $600,000 in one go, including taxes. He chose wisely and hence opted for the second option. He received a lump sum of $429,007 after state and federal tax deductions.

When asked what he would be doing with the money he won, he laughed and said, “We are going to head straight to Golden Corral and eat everything they’ve got.” He further mentioned that he would love to retire after working as a carpenter for 56 years and keep the sum aside for his children and their future needs. The odds of winning the lottery at the Extreme Cash game, North Carolina Education Lottery, were 1 in 2,017,650, as reported by CBS News. 

The prize money of $1 million is also the highest amount one can win at the game. Even though the chance of winning a lottery is one in millions, it is not zero. According to the official website of Powerball, the chances of winning their grand prize are 1 in 292,201,338.00 and the odds for a $1 million cash prize are 1 in 11,688,053.52. You never know where your fate could take you. Therefore, you must always have faith and be ready to accept the things coming your way.