Powerball winner makes friend pause game to check winning numbers. ‘Did we just...?’
Friends who bought a Powerball ticket together were left stunned during a video game break to check winning numbers.
The friends purchased their ticket at a grocery store in Clay County and had been awaiting the Dec. 2 drawing, Missouri Lottery officials said in a Jan. 15 news release.
One of the friends was playing a video game when the other called, asking if he had a minute to talk. “I’m in the middle of a video game; I can’t pause. What’s up?” the friend replied.
“He said, ‘No, you’re going to want to get off for this.’ So I was like, ‘Alright, this is serious now,’” the player said. “He asked me to check the winning numbers on the (Missouri Lottery) website.”
He saw their ticket matched four of the five white balls — 14, 27, 34, 39 and 40 — and the Powerball (4) in the Double Play drawing held after the main Powerball numbers were drawn. Because they selected the Double Feature option on their ticket, they earned entry into the second drawing and won $50,000.
Odds of winning $50,000 in Powerball are 1 in 913,129.
“I was like, ‘Bro, did we just...? Yeah, we did!” one of the winners said. “My buddy now calls me Richie Rich.”
Had the friends matched all of the white balls and the Powerball number in the original drawing, they would have won that day’s jackpot of $225 million.
The jackpot for the Jan. 15 drawing is an estimated $303 million.
Clay County is about a 20-mile drive north from Kansas City.
What to know about Powerball
To score the 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 can be bought on the day of the drawing, but sales times and price 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 January 15, 2025 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Powerball winner makes friend pause game to check winning numbers. ‘Did we just...?’."