RALEIGH – As soon as Robert Crumel of Middlesex saw he won a $2 million prize in Saturday’s Powerball drawing, he shared the news with his family.

“I called my whole family, all my kids,” Crumel recalled. “I won on numbers I picked from birthdays of my kids and grandkids.”

Crumel bought his lucky $3 Power Play ticket from the Murphy Express on East Gannon Avenue in Zebulon. The ticket matched the numbers on all five white balls to win $2 million. Crumel had one of only two tickets in the country to win $2 million. The other came in Indiana.

“I’ve been playing Powerball ever since it came out,” Crumel said. “I kept on playing, never gave up, and my day finally came.

He arrived at lottery headquarters Monday to claim his prize and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $1,425,012. Crumel said he will use his winnings to help out his family.

“I needed it and my family needed it too,” he said.

North Carolinians will have a chance to play for over a billion dollars on Monday as the Powerball drawing offers a $1.04 billion jackpot, or $478.2 million in cash. The jackpot is the fourth largest in Powerball history. The odds of winning a Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million.

Powerball is one of six lottery games in North Carolina where players can buy their tickets at a retail location or with Online Play through the lottery’s website or NC Lottery Official Mobile App.

Ticket sales from draw games make it possible for the lottery to raise 2.8 million a day on average for education. A $10 million lottery-funded grant helped Nash County build the new Red Oak Elementary School. For details on other ways Nash County benefits from lottery funds, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.