Most people would be happy to win $100,000 once. LuAnn Chico apparently decided once wasn’t enough.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — There are people who spend years buying lottery tickets and never win anything more exciting than five bucks and the vague feeling that maybe next week will be different.
Then there’s LuAnn Chico.
The Lexington woman has now won $100,000 twice playing the exact same North Carolina Lottery scratch-off game.
Because apparently probability occasionally gets bored.
Chico’s latest win came from a $20 “Ruby Red 7’s” scratch-off ticket — the same game that handed her another $100,000 prize in August 2025.
“I won again!” Chico told Lottery officials. “I'm excited! More this time than last. I'm thrilled to death.”
Understandably.
Winning once can be filed under very lucky.
Winning the same six-figure prize on the same game twice starts drifting into the territory where your friends begin wondering whether standing next to you improves their odds.
Chico bought the latest ticket while grocery shopping at a Food Lion on North N.C. Highway 150 in Winston-Salem.
Nothing dramatic.
No pilgrimage to a famous lottery retailer.
No dream involving seven red birds and a deceased uncle whispering numbers from beyond the grave.
She was buying groceries.
And then, once again, she won $100,000.
People around her apparently had roughly the same reaction anyone would.
“‘Again? Didn't you just win?’” Chico recalled them asking.
“Yes, last year,” she replied.
At this point, Chico has apparently developed something of a reputation in her community.
People want some of the magic.
“Oh, they want me to rub their arms, they want me to give them money to buy them tickets,” she said.
Her response is wonderfully simple.
“No. Buy your own and try your own luck.”
Which is probably the correct answer.
Because despite what people desperately want to believe, Chico says there is no secret system, no lucky ritual and no mystical technique for picking winners.
“That's all it is, it's luck,” she said. “I got good luck.”
And she certainly does.
Chico returned to North Carolina Lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Sept. 21 to collect her second $100,000 prize.
After federal and state taxes, she walked away with $72,016.
The first time she won, much of the money went toward her four grandchildren.
They’re apparently still benefiting from it.
But this time around, Grandma has revised the distribution policy.
“This time, they're getting a little bit, but not as much,” she said. “More is going to me and my husband this time.”
And honestly, fair enough.
Her plans include taking a two-week beach vacation with her husband.
Because after winning $100,000 twice, eventually you’re allowed to spend some of it on yourself.
The $20 Ruby Red 7’s game launched in August 2025.
Two of its original three $2 million top prizes remain available.
Following Chico’s latest win, just one $100,000 prize remains from the nine originally offered. Five of the 30 prizes worth $10,000 are also still available.
The overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 3.45.
The odds of winning $100,000 twice from the same scratch-off game?
That number isn’t listed.
Probably because sometimes statistics are less interesting than simply admitting that one woman in North Carolina appears to have taken more than her fair share of the universe’s good luck.