Lottery blank ticket with lotto balls on blue background. 3d illustration / iStock
*A Washington, D.C. resident is taking legal action against Powerball and the D.C. Lottery for failing to honor a $340 million prize last year.
John Cheeks claims his numbers matched those on the D.C. Lottery’s website. Lottery officials, however, denied his prize after claiming the numbers on the website were erroneous, NBC News reports.
Cheeks purchased the Powerball ticket on Jan. 6, 2023, for the Jan. 7 drawing. When he checked his numbers on Jan. 8, he was stunned to see they matched.
“I got a little excited, but I didn’t shout, I didn’t scream,” Cheeks said. “I just politely called a friend. I took a picture as he recommended, and that was it. I went to sleep.”
Unfortunately for Cheeks, the numbers displayed on the D.C. Lottery website did not match the ones drawn in the Powerball lottery on January 7th.
Powerball player John Cheeks denied $340M lottery jackpot over website ‘mistake’ https://t.co/9TlgegPJX9 pic.twitter.com/YTHbZg9mn6
— New York Post (@nypost) February 19, 2024
According to his lawsuit, Cheeks’ numbers were visible on the D.C. Lottery website for three days, along with the $340 million Powerball prize. He was ultimately informed that lottery contractor Taoti Enterprises accidentally posted the wrong numbers.
Here’s more from NBC News:
In his lawsuit, Cheeks says when he tried to redeem the ticket at a licensed retailer, the prize was denied. At the D.C. Office of Lottery and Gaming prize center, Cheeks says he got another denial. He says he also got a request from a claims staffer.
“’Hey, this ticket is no good. Just throw it in the trash can,’” Cheeks said. “And I gave him a stern look. I said, ‘In the trash can?’ ‘Oh yeah, just throw it away. You’re not gonna get paid. There’s a trash can right there.’”
Instead of discarding the ticket, Cheeks contacted a lawyer.
“They have said that one of their contractors made a mistake,” said Cheeks’ attorney, Richard Evans. “I haven’t seen the evidence to support that yet.”
“Even if a mistake was made, the question becomes: What do you do about that?” he said. “There is a precedent for this, a similar case that happened in Iowa, where a mistake was admitted to by a contractor and they paid the winnings out.”
READ MORE: Lucky Brooklyn Man Wins $10M On Scratch-Off Lottery Ticket for Second Time
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