Powerball player gets ‘unusual’ message when checking Virginia ticket — he won big
A Powerball player was checking his tickets with his Virginia Lottery app when he got a confusing message.
“This is unusual,” Teerawat Akkarach recalled thinking. “Maybe we won some money.”
The message on his app told him his prize was greater than $600, the Virginia Lottery said in a Feb. 2 news release. The lottery player scanned some other non-winning tickets, then he circled back to the one that showed the message.
When the Maryland man and his wife checked the winning numbers from the Jan. 8 drawing, they learned they had won $150,000, the Virginia Lottery announced.
“I never get lucky on anything,” Akkarach told lottery officials.
The man from Rockville matched four of the white balls plus the red Powerball, which normally would have yielded a $50,000 prize. But Akkarach added power play to his ticket, which tripled the prize.
Akkarach said he plays the lottery about once a month. This time he waited a week to check the several tickets he bought at a Sheetz in Sterling, Virginia.
He landed the biggest prize in the Jan. 8 drawing, with no other player winning more than $50,000, according to Powerball.
Akkarach doesn’t immediately have plans for his prize money, he told lottery officials.
The jackpot in the Feb. 5 Powerball drawing is estimated to reach $214 million.
Sterling is near the border of Virginia and Maryland, about 30 miles northwest of Washington, D.C.
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.
Many people can gamble or play games of chance without harm. However, for some, gambling is an addiction that can ruin lives and families.
If you or a loved one shows signs of gambling addiction, you can seek help by calling the national gambling hotline at 1-800-522-4700 or visiting the National Council on Problem Gambling website.
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