Woman Closes on First House, Wins $1 Million From Scratch-Off a Week Later

Imagine closing on your first house and finally becoming a homeowner, then a week later winning enough money to pay the house off. Well, that's exactly what happened to Patricia Simmons.

Patricia Simmons Lottery Winner

Patricia Simmons had just closed on her first home and was admittedly nervous about making her mortgage payments.

Every homeowner goes through the "Be careful what you wish for" stage, especially when closing on their first house.

A week after closing on her house, Simmons, an in-home aide in North Carolina, stopped at a Fairway One Stop gas station and bought a "$30 Millionaire Maker" scratch-off ticket.

She scratched it to see if she had won anything, and that's when her life changed forever.

Simmons tells nclottery.com that when she realized what had just happened, she just kept staring at the winning $1 million ticket trying to figure out if what was happening was even real.

Simmons tells nclottery.com “I’ve been in shock ever since. I’m just numb."

Obviously, when she called her husband to tell him she had just won $1 million, he thought she was playing a joke on him.

The Simmons family collected their winnings from the North Carolina Lottery Office Monday (5/8/23) where she chose to take the lump, one-time sum of $600,000.

After state and federal taxes, Simmons was awarded a $427,509 check.

Read more at KLFY.com.