Powerball Player Wins $1 Million Twice During Same Drawing

With a little extra luck, a Powerball player in Massachusetts doubled his reward from $1 million to $2 million.

Fitchburg resident Paul Corcoran informed Powerball officials that he had accidentally bought two plays for the Powerball drawing on Wednesday, July 9.  He claimed to have previously bought a ticket for seven Powerball drawings in a row, all including the same numbers.

According to Corcoran, he had assumed that the seven payouts had ended with the draw on Monday, July 7.  The Massachusetts homeowner claimed to have bought a second ticket for the draw on July 9 at a nearby store, this time with the identical numbers.

He believed he had won the second-richest reward in the game, which is $1 million, when the five white balls appeared on his numbers, which are 5, 9, 25, 28, 69.  But his good fortune was just getting started because he later discovered that July 9 was included in a ticket from his seven-play purchase.

Corcoran has already spent his $2 million reward, which will be worth around $1,080,000 after a 37% federal tax and a 9% state tax.  What he will do with the little over $1 million is still up in the air.

One ticket had the $1 add-on Power Play to increase their win to $2 million after the Power Play landed on 2x, and six other tickets also matched the five white balls.

Tomorrow, Saturday, July 19, is the next Powerball drawing. The projected jackpot is $288 million, including $130.6 million in cash.

Credited to the Snooze Button 

Another lottery story involves an Ohio man who claims to have unintentionally slept through his alarm.  He decided to get an energy drink at a Class 2 Drive Thru located at 1025 E. Lincoln Way in Minerva because he had skipped work.

He decided to buy a $30 scratch-off while waiting in line.  The scratcher gave him a $500 win.  He made the decision to buy a couple more by going through the drive-thru once again.  He won $50,000, the second-tier prize in the game, with another ticket.

'I reversed my truck in the drive-thru and asked the clerk to check my ticket. I told him, ‘I think you just changed my life,'” said the winner, who decided to remain anonymous, as permitted by the Ohio Lottery.

The man, who has always played the lottery, claimed to have won $20,000 on a scratcher.  He used that money to buy a new truck.

According to the Ohio Lottery, the man won roughly $36,000 after federal and state taxes.  The man was playing Monopoly 200X.  The lottery's website states that the top reward in the game, which is $200,000 annually for 25 years, is still in use.  Three tickets worth $200K annually are still up for grabs.

In Nick of Time, redemption 

Back in Massachusetts, a woman claims that her son alerted her to a news article about a $100,000 unclaimed ticket that was soon to expire.

"My son saw it on the news and said, ‘Ma, you got a ticket in that drawer,’ and we looked at the numbers and they were right,” said the winner, Margo Garstka, of Chicopee.

She said that as part of the Fishin' for Quic Pics promotion run by the Massachusetts State Lottery, she was given the Quic Pic ticket for free.  She kept it with a couple of screwdrivers in a drawer.