Lottery player waits a month to check Powerball ticket, then sees she’s a big winner
A Virginia woman’s long wait to check her lottery ticket meant she was in for a surprise a month later, according to lottery officials.
Susan Turgeon and her husband went to a Rite Aid in Chester to pick up medicine for their cat Sheba in January, according to a March 20 Virginia Lottery news release. She decided to buy a Powerball ticket with the Easy Pick option — which randomly selects numbers — while her husband grabbed the prescription, lottery officials said.
But when she returned home, she didn’t check her ticket right away. Instead, Turgeon waited almost a month after the drawing took place to check her numbers, according to lottery officials.
When Turgeon scanned her ticket, she found out she had a big winner on her hands.
She won $100,000in the Jan. 27 drawing, lottery officials said. She matched four numbers and the Powerball, which would normally result in $50,000, but she paid extra for the Power Play feature to double her winnings, according to lottery officials.
“It’s surreal!” she told lottery officials when she claimed her prize.
She didn’t share how she will spend her winnings, lottery officials said.
Chester is about a 15-mile drive south from Richmond.
What to know about Powerball
To score a jackpot in the Powerball, a player must match all five white balls and the red Powerball.
The odds of scoring the jackpot prize are 1 in 292,201,338.
Tickets cost $2 and can be bought on the day of the drawing, but sales times vary by state.
Drawings are broadcast Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays at 10:59 p.m. ET and can be streamed online.
Powerball is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
This story was originally published March 21, 2024 at 12:24 PM with the headline "Lottery player waits a month to check Powerball ticket, then sees she’s a big winner."
