All 3 of his NC lottery tickets were winners, but the last one made his mouth drop

A trip to buy gas for a lawnmower ended with a North Carolina man winning enough money to buy the pickup truck of his dreams.

It was Tuesday and Samson Wooten was at the Friendly Mart in Chinquapin when he got his lawnmower gas and decided to go inside for a hot dog, according to a release from the N.C. Education Lottery. Chinquapin is about 95 miles southeast of Raleigh, in Duplin County.

Wooten purchased a few Ruby Mine 9X lottery tickets while at the counter, and he scratched them off inside the store.

All three were winners, lottery officials said.

“I got a five (dollar) and a ten (dollar),” Wooten said in the release.

It was on the third ticket that his “mouth dropped,” he said. It was worth $200,000, the game’s top prize, officials said.

Odds of winning that much are 1 in 1.2 million, according to the lottery’s website.

Wooten, who lives in Rose Hill, drove to the lottery headquarters in Raleigh the next day to get his money. The check came to $141,501, after state and federal taxes were withheld, officials said.

The cash will apparently not be spent frivolously. Wooten is a buyer and seller in the livestock business and his intention is to purchase “another dual rear-wheel truck for work,” officials said.

Anything left over will be used for investments.

“I have always said that if I’m ever blessed with a lump sum of money I would invest it,” Wooten said in the release.

Lottery officials noted Wooten’s win came, coincidentally, on National Hot Dog Day.

Tickets in the Ruby Mine 9X game are $5. The game started in June with four top prize of $200,000 and two remain unclaimed, officials said.