Florida man wins $100,000 lottery prize during North Carolina vacation

June 9 (UPI) -- A Florida man who took a chance during a trip to North Carolina found traveling pays off when he scored a $100,000 lottery jackpot.

Mark Hoti of Greenacres told North Carolina Education Lottery officials he was visiting his sister and brother-in-law in Raleigh when he stopped at the S N Food Mart in Raleigh to buy supplies for a cookout.

Hoti said he decided to buy some scratch-off lottery tickets and a $300,000,000 Supreme Riches ticket caught his eye.

"I hesitated to buy the $30 ticket," Hoti recalled. "I was getting ready to walk away, but, I don't know, for some reason I thought, 'You know what, I'm up here, I'm on vacation, I'll take it.'"

The player said he found his risk-taking paid off when he scratched the ticket off at his sister's house.

"I got to the dollar sign," he said, "and I scratched it off a little, and I said, 'Oh, I won $100.'"

He said his sister alerted him to the fact that he wasn't done scratching.

"She goes, 'Wait a minute, you still have to scratch!' And she scratched it a little more and that's what revealed the other three zeros," Hoti said. "It was kind of like flip out time."

The ticket was a $100,000 winner.

Hoti said when he collected his winnings Monday that he will "probably use it on a lot of sensible things," such as paying off some bills.