Lottery player uses simple trick to pick numbers. She then won a life-changing prize

Lottery players use all types of methods for picking numbers, but Melinda Boyce went back to basics after deciding random numbers didn’t work for her, according to the North Carolina Education Lottery.

“I’ve been using family birthday numbers since January after seeing that someone else won doing that,” Boyce said in a May 30 news release.

It paid off May 22 in the Carolina Cash 5 game. Boyce, who lives in Denver, invested $1 online and won with $120,000, lottery officials said. Denver is in Lincoln County, about a 25-mile drive northwest from Charlotte.

Online players like Boyce learn of their win via email, officials said.

“I started to freak out,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘My numbers came up, my numbers came up.’ … This is just insane.”

Cash 5 players pick five numbers from 1 to 43 and odds of matching all five white balls for the jackpot are 1 in 962,598, the state says.

Boyce says she switched to birth dates after deciding quick picks weren’t working, officials said.

She claimed her prize May 29 at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After taxes were taken out, it came to $85,800, officials said.

Boyce also has a back-to-basics approach in mind for spending the cash. She plans to “pay some bills and save the rest,” officials said.

Cash 5 is one of a half dozen N.C. Education Lottery games that allow players to buy tickets at stores or play online.