Key Takeaways
- Lightning struck the same ticket twice. LuAnn Chico won $100,000 on the $20 Ruby Red 7’s scratch-off in August 2025, then hit the same prize on the same game about a year later.
- The headline number shrinks fast. After state and federal withholding, her second $100,000 win came to $72,016.
- Individual luck feeds public budgets. Davidson County received more than $9.6 million in lottery funding for education in the prior year, the quieter side of every jackpot story.
LuAnn Chico’s lucky streak keeps circling back to the same piece of cardboard. The Lexington, North Carolina resident has now pulled $100,000 twice from the North Carolina Education Lottery’s $20 Ruby Red 7’s scratch-off, first in August 2025 and again after a grocery run that led her to claim the second prize at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on 9/21/2026. “I won again! I’m excited! More this time than last,” she said after the repeat hit, which netted her $72,016 after state and federal tax withholdings. Lottery Post resurfaced the déjà vu moment on 10/5/2026, as the story ricocheted far beyond Davidson County.
Twice the same ticket, twice the same prize
If you spend your days watching payments and probabilities, you learn to respect the rare edge case. That is what makes the story out of Davidson County stand out. LuAnn Chico, from Lexington, North Carolina, managed to hit $100,000 twice on the exact same scratch-off, a $20 Ruby Red 7’s game, per the North Carolina Education Lottery’s September 24, 2026 release.
Scratch-offs are the cash economy’s little cousin to mobile microtransactions: small, frequent buys, a fast reveal, and a clean hit of feedback. But even longtime players almost never see the same six-figure outcome repeat on the same game, let alone within just over a year.
From a Sheetz stop to a Food Lion grocery run
Chico’s first $100,000 moment came in August 2025, after buying a winning Ruby Red 7’s ticket at a Sheetz on Peters Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem, according to the lottery’s August 22, 2025 post. Back then, she framed the money as a family tool, saying, “I have four grandchildren and they are our first priority,” she said.
The second win arrived during an errand that sounds almost intentionally ordinary: she bought another Ruby Red 7’s ticket while grocery shopping at a Food Lion on N.C. Highway 150, in the northern Davidson County area. “I won again! I’m excited! More this time than last,” she said.
The payout math and the part most winners feel first
Chico went to lottery headquarters in Raleigh on September 21, 2026, to claim the prize. After state and federal tax withholdings, her second $100,000 win became $72,016 in take-home money, a reminder that windfalls quickly turn into line items once the paperwork hits.
“I’m thrilled to death,” she said. And really, who wouldn’t be, even before deciding what comes next?
When “luck” turns into local funding
Lottery stories often read like pure chance, but they also sit inside a steady pipeline of public finance. The North Carolina Education Lottery said Davidson County received more than $9.6 million in lottery funding in the prior year for educational programs, tying an individual win to the quieter budget mechanics behind it.
The déjà vu element even traveled beyond state news releases: Lottery Post’s October 5, 2026 story put the repeat $100,000 outcome right in the headline, the kind of statistical oddity that keeps America’s scratch-off economy feeling unpredictable.
