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A couple in North Carolina are celebrating after hitting it big in the state lottery by splitting the prize.
Constance Cannon and her husband, Luther, were shocked to find that their Cash 5 tickets were the lucky winners of Sunday's (August 22) drawing, according to lottery officials. Luther had purchased two tickets using his own numbers at the Yemen Food Mart in Rocky Mount, giving one to his wife as a gift. It wasn't until he checked his ticket the next day, however, that he discovered they won the $997,400 jackpot. Constance recalls the moment her husband gave her the news about the winning ticket.
"It said, 'Go to lottery headquarters,' he told me," she said. "When he got home, he showed me the ticket and pulled up the winning numbers on his phone. And when I looked at them, I just started crying."
They claimed their prize at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Tuesday (August 24), splitting the nearly $1 million jackpot and each taking home $352,830 after state and federal taxes.
"It's just amazing that we won this amount of money," said Constance. "We can pay off our house and pay off our cars and be able to do something for our family."