Powerball player drops his phone when club hits jackpot — and makes history in Michigan
As the members of a Michigan lottery club rang in the new year, their lives changed forever.
The three-member club hit the jackpot on Jan. 1 — and recently claimed the largest Powerball jackpot in Michigan at $842.4 million, lottery officials said in a June 11 release.
The day after the drawing, one of the club members noticed the winning ticket had been sold at the Food Castle of Grand Blanc. The club also purchased its ticket from that location, and he went online to check the numbers.
The phone fell out of his hand when he realized the ticket was the winner, but he tried to contain his excitement by going to work.
“They’ve been elated and overwhelmed, thrilled, and nervous. They’ve gone from shock and sleepless nights to giving careful thought as to how this once-in-a-lifetime event will transform their lives,” “The Breakfast Club” attorney Mark Harder told lottery officials.
The club decided to claim its prize in a lump sum of $425 million rather than receiving the full amount in annuity payments over time. After taxes, the three winners will take home $305 million.
The winners have big plans for their prize, they told officials. They plan to retire early, travel, and share their winnings with family members and nonprofit organizations.
“This prize will positively affect our family for generations to come,” a club member said. “Up until now, we have led a comfortable life and anticipated retiring someday. Now, we’re not financially bound to a specific timetable. The world – and our opportunities – have opened up in some incredible ways. This has been life changing for us.”
The prize exceeded the largest Powerball jackpot on record for the state — a $337 million win in 2012. The largest recorded Powerball jackpot in the U.S. was $2.04 billion won in California in November 2022.
Grand Blanc is about a 60-mile drive northwest of Detroit.
What to know about Powerball
To score the 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 can be bought on the day of the drawing, but sales times and price 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.
This story was originally published June 11, 2024 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Powerball player drops his phone when club hits jackpot — and makes history in Michigan."
