$600K Monopoly Winner in NC Gets “Best Birthday Present Ever”

For Chelsea Carter, the day she turned 40 will be one she’ll never forget, as it brought her a whopping $600,000 win on a popular online lottery game. And all it took was a $10 bet, which the house cleaner from Ocean Isle Beach placed at 2 a.m. while her husband was sleeping/

Against staggering odds of one in 50 million, she hit the jackpot at the Monopoly Digital Instants game through the North Carolina Education Lottery, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

“This Is the Best Birthday Present Ever”

“Today is my 40th birthday,” Carter said in a video posted by the NC Education Lottery on TikTok. “This is the best birthday present ever.”

The woman, who described her state soon after the realization as “in shock”, began to shake her husband and tell him to wake up. “I go ‘I just won $626,000,’ and he laughed and closed his eyes,” Carter explained. “This is insane. … I’ve cried, I’ve laughed, it’s surreal.”

When the mother of three was handed a check for $626,543 ($449,548 after tax) on September 12, she grew even more emotional, calling the prize a “blessing”, adding she is “just an everyday person” who cleans houses for a living. “Everyday people can win something like this, and we did.”, she added. 

The lucky winner wants to invest some of the money in land, and use the rest “as a safety net” for her children.

Winners Should Be Cautious 

The game’s current jackpot now sits at more than $474,000, continuing to draw players looking to get hit by the same stroke of luck.

Since launching in 2005, the North Carolina Education Lottery has funneled billions of dollars into schools across the state, funding everything from pre-K initiatives to scholarships for college students. By 2016, its contributions to education had already exceeded $4.6 billion.

While Carter’s win is cause for celebration, financial experts often remind new winners to take a cautious approach. Before a pair of lucky players from Missouri and Texas split a $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot (the second largest in the country) earlier this month, financial advisor Rob Wilson shared advice with CBS News Philadelphia that applies to winners of any size prize.

“The biggest thing that you should not do in this situation is go and start bragging about your win,” Wilson said. “I would tell your spouse, your accountant, and your attorney, that’s it.”

North Carolina generally does not allow lottery winners to stay anonymous, which can make careful financial planning even more important. Wilson recommends seeking out an attorney if you don’t already have one and working with multiple advisors to safeguard the money.

“You never, ever want to sign a power of attorney to any of those advisors, which gives them an undue amount of authority over your winnings,” he cautioned.