Steven Allen, a retired man from De Soto in Wisconsin is going to enjoy a much more financially cushioned retirement after winning a $250,000 prize with the Wisconsin Lottery! Allen, told the story of how he was craving pizza, specifically Rocky Rococo’s pizza so he decided to pick one up. On his way there, he stopped off at Festival Foods which is located at 30 Copeland Ave, La Crosse and bought a number of Lotto and scratchers tickets at the lottery machine in there. He usually has a set of numbers he plays, but on this occasion, he went for the Quick Pick option and thank goodness that he did as he wouldn’t have won otherwise. Allen used the Wisconsin website to check his tickets, and noticed that the number 17, 18 and 20 kept coming up and matching which made him do a double-take in shock. He says it still hasn’t sunk in for him, even after claiming this prize at the lottery headquarters. 

Francie Elliot, from Lathrop in Missouri must be happy she bought a different lottery ticket than usual after finding out she’d won $50,000. Elliot was on her way to a particular destination, when she decided to stop off at the Holt Truck Stop, which is located at 4850 S.E. PP Highway in Holt. Whilst there, she was actually looking to purchase a “Missouri Lottery crossword-themed" scratchers which cost $5, however the store was out of stock so she decided to try her luck with a different set of tickets, a couple $3 “Daily Crossword” tickets. It wasn’t until later on that night, that it dawned on her to check the tickets she’d bought, Elliot casually went through the tickets till she got to the third one and maybe because it was night time, she didn’t even realise how many words were matching up. Much to her surprise, she’d actually matched up the letters on the scratchers to create 11 complete words, which is equivalent to the top prize of $50,000. 

Virginia Watson, from Linn Creek in Missouri never expected, or believed that she could win the lottery, especially not $100,000. Watson was actually gifted her winning ticket, which was a “Money Tree” Missouri Lottery scratchers and explained how she’s pretty bad at checking the tickets, and recognising whether they are or aren’t winners. So, she’s made her own little strategy which involves setting the tickets aside, and always double-checking so she doesn’t miss anything. This occasion was no different, as she was going through her pile a second time when she said “Oh, my gosh! I think I won $100,000, $100,000” repeating the amount over and over, to try and make sense of reality. Soon after, she went straight to a retailer to have the ticket scanned, and once confirmed, there was lots of visible happiness. 

David Johnson, 56 who is a trucker driver from Brooklyn is ready to live his best life after finding out he is the winner of the second-biggest jackpot won in New York with Powerball. Johnson’s prize amount was an insane $298.3 million, he bought the winning ticket from a store located opposite his workplace which was Arnold’s Service Station on Linden Boulevard for just $5, before going back to work and not checking it. It wasn’t until a friend who he worked with, rang him and said “Hey Dave! Somebody won the Powerball by the gas station”. He still didn’t think anything of it, and didn’t think that there could even be a possibility that he was the winner as he’s never really experienced good luck in his life. Luckily (ironically), his friend phoned him again, begging him to check his ticket and finally a couple of days later, he checked and realised he’d won on his journey to work. 

Melissa Spagnolla, from Little Silver in Burlington County has found out she is the sole winner of $2,000,000 jackpot with the New Jersey county after receiving the winning lottery ticket as a gift. Spagnolla, explained that she doesn’t generally buy tickets, and instead only purchases tickets for her family on special occasions as they have been playing for a long-time. It’s actually got to a point, where her family bought each other tickets all the time – even when there wasn’t an occasion, and lottery tickets have quite literally replaced gifts as a whole. Her dad purchased the ticket from Wawa, which is located at 210 Georgetown on Wrightstown Road in Wrightstown. 

A mom, 40-something, from Sydney in Australia is gobsmacked after learning she has won the largest lottery prize ever won in Australia – a total of AU $107 million, which is worth around $76.7 million in US dollars with Powerball. The woman, who has chosen to keep her identity anonymous told the story of how she bought her ticket online using some randomly chosen numbers – which happened to be: 20, 18, 33, 22, 11, 26, 4 as well as the Powerball number 9. Originally, she was led to believe that she had won $107,000 which she was over the moon about anyway and said “Oh my God, $107,000! That’s amazing” but after being contacted by lottery officials, they told her that it was actually a prize worth far more... $107 million, to which she said was such a large amount of money she couldn’t believe it!