NC man nudged his wife after Powerball win. Barely awake, she didn’t believe him.
A Gastonia man nudged his wife awake to tell her he’d won a Powerball prize, but she didn’t believe him, N.C. lottery officials said this week.
Dennis Francis said his wife, Gloria Ann, accused him of lying when he told her he’d snared $100,000 in the Aug. 20 drawing, but she “woke straight up” when he showed her the numbers.
Francis recalled the conversation when he claimed his prize at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Friday, according to a lottery news release on Monday.
Francis played the numbers of his birth date on the $3 Power Play ticket he bought through Online Play on NCLottery.com for the Aug. 20 drawing, officials said. The numbers matched four of the five white balls and the Powerball to win $50,000 in the Aug. 20 drawing. The prize doubled when the 2X Power Play multiplier hit.
The numbers drawn were 5, 9, 11, 16 and 66, and 7 was the Powerball number, according to NCLottery.com.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is wonderful,’” the 62-year-old Francis said about his reaction when he realized he’d won.
After taxes, Francis took home $71,049, according to the lottery.
“It’s nice now to have some extra dollars in case of emergency,” Francis told officials.
He’ll also use some the money to pay off his car, he said.
Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot stands at $134 million, or $75.3 million in cash, according to the lottery. The odds of winning a jackpot are 1 in 292 million.
Powerball is among four games in North Carolina where players can buy tickets at a lottery retailer or on the lottery website and app. The other games are Mega Millions, Lucky For Life and Carolina Cash 5.
