A Tennessee man was in Maryland for the holidays and went back home with a gift of $100,000 from Powerball. He was intrigued when he saw the Powerball jackpot had reached $1.8 billion for the Dec. 24 drawing.
“I saw the jackpot and said to my family, ‘Let’s get a ticket’,” the casual player said.
He had left Maryland and checked his numbers a few days later. He scanned the ticket and received a “Go to Lottery” message. Then he called his brother to ask for the winning numbers for that drawing.
He liked hearing the words that came out of his brother’s mouth. That’s because he noticed he almost had a perfect match: four of the five white balls plus the red Powerball.
“I said to my brother, ‘I think I won!'” he said Feb. 9 when he claimed his winnings at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore.
The former Maryland resident was a little frustrated that he was one ball short of winning $1.8 billion, but then realized he had scored a nice third-tier prize. That prize value starts at $50,000, but the Tennessee winner was able to double it to $100,000 by adding the Power Play option for an extra dollar. The option increases the amount of non-jackpot prizes by a randomly selected multiplier of at least 2 and as much as 10.
The real estate agent said he already has plans for his prize.
“I’m going to give some away and will try to keep some for myself,” he said.
The winning-ticket was purchased in Annapolis at the Dash-In store at 2575 Riva Road.
