College student started screaming after $200,000 win from ticket purchased in Avon

Published 1:39 pm Thursday, November 19, 2020

Out shopping for dinner, Burak Davrekanli decided to try his luck on two $5 tickets and one of them won him the final $200,000 Mega Bucks top prize, according to a press release from the North Carolina Education Lottery.

“I was all the time saying that, ‘One day I will win it. I’m just waiting for that day,’” he said. “It was like a dream.”

Davrekanli, an international student studying liberal arts who lives on Hatteras Island, purchased his winning $5 ticket from the Food Lion on NC 12 in Avon.

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“I wasn’t planning to go to Food Lion,” Davrekanli recalled. “And at the last minute I said, ‘Let me go and get a couple things for dinner.’ And then I just got the ticket from the machine and I went back home. For a while I forgot it.”

Later that night, he remembered his tickets and scratched them off.

“I scratched the prize part and the first thing I saw was three 0s,” he recalled. “And I was like, ‘Okay?’ And I kept scratching and there was another 0 and another 0 and then I saw the 2. $200,000. And I just froze.”

When his big win sunk in, Davrekanli started celebrating. “I was alone but I’m pretty sure all of Hatteras Island heard me because I was just screaming!” he recalled, laughing.

Davrekanli claimed his prize Wednesday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $141,501.

“I’m going to use it for my education,” he said. He plans to go into business marketing after graduation.

Davrekanli won the last $200,000 top prize so the lottery will begin steps to end the game.

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