Powerball jackpot 'winner' sues lottery company for denial of $340mn prize money
US lottery ticket draw
Winning a lottery is rare. But what if one is told that even that rare occurrence was mistaken? This is precisely what happened with a Washington DC resident identified as John Cheeks. He is now taking legal action against the country's Powerball lottery, after claiming that a $340 million jackpot victory was wrongly denied to him after a website glitch falsely displayed his numbers as the winning combination.
Cheeks, who purchased the disputed Powerball ticket on January 6, 2023, discovered his apparent win when he checked the DC lottery’s website two days later. Despite the excitement, his claim was rejected by lottery administrators upon attempting to redeem the ticket.
What does it mean?
The case has raised questions about the responsibility and consequences surrounding such errors in the lottery system.
Powerball played in 45 American states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
It has a ticket cost of $2, and the odds of winning the jackpot are remarkably slim, at one in 292.2 million.
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'Throw the lottery ticket in the trash can'
According to court documents, the lottery administrators claimed that Cheeks' ticket was not validated as a winner by the gaming system, and thus he was denied the prize.
"Hey, this ticket is no good. Just throw it in the trash can," a lottery staffer reportedly told Cheeks.
Cheeks recalled to the NBC News, "I gave him a stern look. I said, 'In the trash can?'"
"'Oh yeah, just throw it away. You’re not going to get paid. There’s a trash can right there.'"
But Cheeks did not throw it away. Instead, he secured it in a safe deposit box and enlisted legal representation to sue Powerball.
Also read |UK mathematicians devise approach for guaranteed lottery win by purchasing just 27 tickets
Other defendants in the lawsuit include the Multi-State Lottery Association and game contractor Taoti Enterprises.
Taoti project manager Brittany Bailey, in a court declaration, said the website glitch occurred during a testing process involving a change in time zones.
The inadvertent posting of test Powerball numbers on the live website a day before the drawing was attributed to a mistake by their quality assurance team.
Also watch |China lottery ticket sales rise 36.5 per cent in 2023
Despite Taoti's acknowledgment of the error, Cheeks's attorney, Richard Evans, has questioned the evidence supporting the contractor's claim.
Evans has cited aprecedent, when a similar incident occurred in November 2023 where the Iowa Lottery honoured temporary winners despite posting the wrong Powerball numbers.
(With inputs from agencies)