NC woman bought Powerball ticket too late and still won $2 million, officials say
A woman who purchased her Powerball ticket one minute too late for Wednesday’s drawing hit the jackpot three days later — and she didn’t even know it, lottery officials in North Carolina said.
Elizabeth Johnson, who lives about an hour outside of Raleigh in Lucama, won $2 million in Saturday’s Powerball drawing after her $3 Power Play ticket matched all five numbers on the white balls and a 2x multiplier was drawn, the N.C. Education Lottery said.
“It was definitely a shock!” Johnson told officials. “When I got the message saying that I had won I thought, ‘Well, I didn’t even play tonight.’”
Johnson took home $1.4 million on Thursday after taxes.
Powerball drawings are twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Johnson, who works as an interpreter, rushed home from work Wednesday to buy a ticket in time for the drawing, officials said. But she missed the 9:57 p.m. cutoff time by one minute, and her Quick Pick ticket was entered into Saturday’s drawing instead.
Players can pick five numbers between 1 and 69 and one Powerball number between 1 and 26. Choosing “Quick Pick” lets the terminal randomly select those numbers.
Tickets cost $2, but for $1 extra players can select a “Power Play” that multiplies their winnings by 2 to 10 times.
There are multiple ways to win the Powerball, according to the Education Lottery’s website. The jackpot — which currently sits at $253 million — is won by matching five white balls in any order and the one red Powerball number.
A player can win the second-level $1 million prize by matching all five white balls. The odds of a player matching all five white balls are 1 in 11.6 million.
Johnson told officials she plans to buy a house and go on vacation with her winnings.
“The kids want to go to Disneyland,” she said. “We’ve never been and now we’ll get to.”
