Nursing assistant has solo late-night dance party after checking NC lottery ticket

A North Carolina woman says she couldn’t help but start dancing around her living room in the middle of the night after discovering she was holding a winning lottery ticket.

Daphne Deberry of Asheboro got the ticket the day before, but didn’t bother scratching off the numbers until 1:30 in the morning, according to a release from the N.C. Education Lottery.

Her prize was $200,000, officials said.

With the rest of the world asleep, the certified nursing assistant celebrated alone, including talking to herself.

“I danced around by myself,” Deberry said. “I said to myself, ‘I think I won, I know I won.’”

Her win came in the new “7” game, which launched May 3 with six top prizes of $200,000, according to the lottery’s website. Deberry bought the $5 ticket at Quik Chek store in Candor, about 70 miles east of uptown Charlotte, officials said.

Odds of winning $200,000 in the game are 1 in 1,200,000.

Deberry collected her prize Friday in Raleigh, and got $141,501 after federal and state taxes were withheld, officials said.

She intends to give some of the money to her church, then “bring some cheer to residents of a nursing home where she worked for 21 years before moving to home health care,” lottery officials said.

“I still can’t believe it,” she said in the release. “I feel good.”