CONCORD, N.C. — Bram Dunehew was just trying to fill his tank. Instead, a malfunctioning gas pump put him on a path to a $2 million lottery prize.
Dunehew was fueling up at Sam's Mart on N.C. 49 in Harrisburg, outside Charlotte, when the pump failed to print his receipt. Rather than drive off without it, he went inside the store to ask for a printed copy — and while he was there, on something of a whim, he bought a ticket for Saturday night's Powerball drawing.
"It's crazy because I never would have even bought that ticket if the receipt printed outside," Dunehew told officials at the North Carolina Education Lottery.
All five white balls, doubled
The ticket matched all five white balls drawn, which on its own is worth $1 million. Dunehew had also paid extra for the Power Play add-on, which doubled his prize to $2 million.
North Carolina has let drivers add a lottery ticket with a simple card swipe at the pump since 2015, a program meant to spare customers an extra stop inside — the very service Dunehew's pump failed to provide before it jammed on his receipt.
Lottery officials confirmed the win this week and said Dunehew has already decided how he wants to spend part of it: he plans to buy his father a Cadillac.
The win is one of several large Powerball prizes claimed recently in the region. A pair of brothers in Virginia split a $200,000 prize from the same multistate game days earlier. For Dunehew, the detail that still stands out is how close he came to missing the ticket altogether — a working receipt printer, he said, would have sent him straight back to his car, $2 million poorer.
