Better to be safe than sorry — honest mistake leads to two separate wins
By Kate Northrop
FITCHBURG, Mass. — A slight mix-up led to one Massachusetts man winning two $1 million Powerball lottery prizes in a single drawing.
Winning $1 million in the lottery alone would have been just swell, but a Massachusetts resident ended up walking away with two identical $1 million prizes thanks to a small miscalculation.
Paul Corcoran of Fitchburg is thankful for playing it safe when he purchased his Powerball tickets for the upcoming week.
Originally, he told the Massachusetts Lottery, he had purchased a multi-draw ticket for seven Powerball drawings at Market Basket on Water Street in Fitchburg. He was certain that the final drawing on the ticket had already taken place.
So, he decided to buy another multi-draw ticket at Country Farms on North Main Street in Leominster so as not to miss out on any upcoming draws. Unbeknownst to him at the time, both those tickets had actually included the Wednesday, July 9 drawing.
The two tickets each held the first five winning numbers in that evening's draw: 5, 9, 25, 28, and 69, just missing the red Powerball number 5 to win the $217.1 million jackpot.
Corcoran chose his own numbers, the Lottery told NBC10 Boston.
On Friday, July 11, he visited Lottery headquarters in Dorchester to claim his double $1 million prizes. The wins "feel good," he said to Lottery officials, and he noted that he does not yet have any plans for the winnings.
For selling the winning tickets, Market Basket and Country Farms will each receive a $10,000 bonus from the Lottery.
The next Powerball annuity jackpot estimate for the drawing on Monday, July 21 currently stands at $308 million.
Powerball is currently offered for sale in 45 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.
Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega (www.usamega.com). The USA Mega website provides lottery players in-depth information about the United States' two biggest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.
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Thanks to GiveFive for the tip.
Why can't this happen to me, I did this several times geesh but congrats
Many do this but not with Mega Millions or Power Ball. Mostly Cash 5 or Daily Numbers draws. You buy 2 or 3 lines for 3 days in advance. On the 3rd day you buy it again thus creating an overlap for that third day so if you happen to hit it then you win double the prize.
I think I'll go prepare myself a liverwurst sandwich with ......
Or maybe olive loaf ?
The Shagster
ShagE3
* l love " miscalculations" that work.
I loved this story when I first read about it because this very lucky guy accidentally did what I've been trying to do intentionally for the last five years.
In the past I've bought a ticket for one drawing (with the Power Play added) with the first five numbers on each line being exactly same. I'm not trying to win the jackpot. Rather I'm trying win a 2 million dollar second place prize five times by matching the first five numbers with each line on the ticket. It's possible for me to win a total of 10 million dollars by doing this. I usually do a QP for each PB number for all five lines on the ticket.
Yup, my five line ticket (which amounts to playing the same first five numbers five times on one ticket) costs me 15 bucks, so doing this isn't exactly cheap.
Think I'm crazy? Well, to a certain extent, you're right. Although one time that I did this and the Power Play number was 3, I matched three numbers and won $135. (I think that's right.... I won that 135 bucks so long ago that I can't recall the exact circumstances of my win.) The clerk where I cashed in that ticket took a long hard look at the ticket after he saw I won $135. I saw him looking at it, and I realized that he was wondering how I pulled it off. So I said to him "Yeah, I know. Playing the same line five times is crazy." He looked at me and said "You aint so crazy. You could have won 10 million dollars with this ticket if you had the other two numbers." G5
What happened to this guy was a fluke... "A lottery fluke" as I call them.
Lottery flukes happen more often that most players realize. How many times have you read about a big winner that a clerk sold him/her a ticket that the player didn't ask for or even want?
I should have pointed out in my post above that the reason why I'm playing for a second place PB win and not a jackpot is this - the odds of matching the first 5 numbers are 1 in 11 million whereas to win a PB jackpot by matching all six numbers the odds are 1 in 292 million.
Winning 10 million bucks would be life changing for my family, as would winning a PB jackpot. But to my way of thinking it's a lot easier to win a life changing 10 million dollars with odds of 11.6 million to 1 against you than it is to win hundreds of millions with 292.2 million to one odds. So I try to manufacture/create my own "lottery fluke." G5
I have done that myself in the past.