18-year-old wins $1M lottery prize after his sister bought a $10 scratch-off ticket

RALEIGH, N.C. — A man in Raleigh, North Carolina, turned a $10 scratch-off ticket into a $1 million prize.

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The North Carolina Education Lottery said Jalen McLean, 18, gave his sister some money on Tuesday so she could pick up a scratch-off ticket for him. She ended up choosing a $10 Jumbo Bucks ticket from a Valero gas station in Fayetteville and brought it home to him.

“He had a huge smile on his face,” his sister Dasha Silas recalled. “Like so big it looked like the movie character Venom.”

McLean is the youngest of five siblings, according to WRAL.

“How many 18-year-olds win something like this?” he said, according to the news outlet.

McLean picked up his prize on Wednesday. He chose to get an annuity of $50,000 over the next 20 years. According to WRAL, that means he will get a $50,000 check for the next 19 years until he gets the full $1 million prize.

He got his first prize on Wednesday and took home $35,753 after taxes, the news station reported.

“I feel like the luckiest guy in the universe,” he said, according to lottery officials.

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