Wilmington man wins $100,000 Powerball prize

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) – A Wilmington man won $100,000, thanks to random numbers that came to mind.

“I still don’t know how I did it,” Bernard Lawson, Jr said. “I just started picking numbers.”

Those numbers turned out to be lucky for Lawson, a security officer, and he beat the odds of 1 in 913,129 to win $100,000 in Saturday’s Powerball drawing.

“People call it lucky,” Lawson said. “I call it blessed.”

Lawson claimed his prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh.

After taxes, he received $69,250. He plans to use some of the money to make sure his kids have a great Christmas.

He bought the $3 Power Play ticket at the Minuteman Food Mart on North JK Powell Boulevard in Whiteville.

The numbers matched four white balls and the Powerball to win $50,000. The prize doubled when the 2X multiplier was drawn for Power Play tickets.

The jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing is $40 million with an estimated lump sum of $23.7 million.