Cary man wins record $1.58 million Fast Play jackpot at Publix

The Publix on Kildaire Farm Road in Cary is now tied to the biggest Fast Play jackpot in North Carolina Education Lottery history, after Montford Faulkner of Cary turned a $20 Jackpot 777 ticket bought there on Feb. 3 into a $1,578,846 prize.

At the moment Faulkner’s ticket hit, the Fast Play jackpot had climbed to $1,378,846. Because he bought a $20 ticket, the prize included the full jackpot plus an extra $200,000 in cash. State and federal taxes reduced the payout to $1,136,933 by the time he claimed it at lottery headquarters in Raleigh.

The win pushed past the previous Fast Play record of $1,120,665, set in Carteret County in March 2023 on a $20 100X The Cash ticket from Handy House #2 in Smyrna. A $1.1 million Fast Play jackpot in Forsyth County in March 2025 had already shown how rare those seven-figure prizes are. Fast Play jackpots keep growing with every ticket sold until one is won, which is part of what made this Cary ticket so valuable.

North Carolina Education Lottery rules require prizes of $100,000 or more to be claimed in person at NC Lottery Headquarters in Raleigh. Draw-game prizes must be claimed within 180 calendar days, and the Jackpot 777 ticket expires on Aug. 2, 2026.

The local significance is hard to miss in Wake County. A routine stop at a neighborhood Publix on Kildaire Farm Road turned into a record-setting money story, with a Cary resident landing a prize that will be remembered long after the winning ticket is cashed. The lottery says North Carolina players have also helped generate more than $12 billion for education since sales began in March 2006, putting Faulkner’s windfall inside a much larger statewide stream of spending and public funding.