North Carolina man keeps promise to friend of 35 years, splits Fast Play jackpot voluntarily

Jul 19, 2022, 8:02 pm (7 comments)

North Carolina Lottery

How you know a friendship is real — share a lottery jackpot

By Kate Northrop

LEXINGTON, N.C. — A North Carolina man's word is as good as gold after he kept a promise to split a lottery jackpot without necessarily splitting the ticket cost.

Scott Edwards of Julian and Perry Charles of Lexington have a 35-year-old friendship worth bragging about after one of them won a $361,527 Fast Play jackpot in the North Carolina Lottery and voluntarily shared it with the other.

A long time ago, Edwards and Charles made a promise to each other that they would split any big lottery wins. Charles upheld that pact after scooping up a six-figure Fast Play prize on Tuesday.

It all started with a $5 Double Win ticket Charles had bought at Mast Food Mart on Old U.S. 64 East in Lexington.

"I'd just gotten off of work," Charles told the Lottery. "I looked at the amount you could win and thought to myself, 'Man, I want this!'"

Charles had the impressive patience to wait until he got home to see if his ticket was a winner. At the time he had purchased the ticket, the Fast Play jackpot stood at a record $723,054. The $5 Double Win ticket Charles bought would receive half of the jackpot if it won, and that's exactly what happened.

He called up Edwards right then and there to fulfill an old promise.

"I was lost for words," Edwards recalled when his friend phoned him. "I was kind of in shock too because to me that's a lot of money to win, and I know that anything he says is just the truth. So, I knew when he told me that he wasn't pulling my leg."

Having known each other for 35 years, it's not hard to imagine that the two friends know each other well.

"He's what you call a true friend," Edwards continued. "Kinda like family."

Edwards and Charles explained to the Lottery that they met while working at a Winn-Dixie supermarket and how the pact came to be all those years ago.

"He was my boss!" Edwards laughed.

"We always talked about if we would hit something big, it didn't matter if we went in together to get the ticket or if we got it separate, we were gonna share it with each other," Charles added.

The pair arrived together at Lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Wednesday to collect their shared prize. After taxes, the total prize came to $128,361.

The odds of winning the Fast Play jackpot are 1 in 320,000.

News story photo(Click to display full-size in gallery)

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

Suchascholar

THIS IS SUCH A BLESSING 🙌 💖

Mata Garbo

There are not many people who would even remember a promise they made back in 1987. I can't even remember the promises I made last Christmas, certainly not 35 years ago. That is a very special friendship, happy for both gentleman.

Cheers

Petrust99

You need that kind of friends 🧡💙💗

sully16's avatarsully16

Congrats to both of them, Party

Bleudog101

That speaks volumes for that kind of friendship!

With my cheap azz non-lottery playing Sister if her and I were to have a pact like that she'd charge me 1/2 of what that ticket cost. 

haymaker's avatarhaymaker

Nice to know that there are still some people that stand by their words.

I hope for his sake the tax people don't try to say the half split is a gift

B/C it exceeds the allowed gift exclusion amount, not sure how much that is but think its about $16G

Bleudog101

Can't speak for NCEL, but KY will not split an amount like this.   

As for the 'big guys', KLC will cut separate checks say for PB or MM which is nice for the purchaser since it relieves them of the financial burden for others in your group.  In other words, they pay their own taxes on their own checks.

That being said, had FB MSG them about playing the big guys on-line if they would cut separate checks....NO!!

Donkey's years ago had printed the CA winner's guide and they will cut up to fifty checks for group play unless that has changed in the last 20 years or so.

End of comments
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