Lottery player thought he won US$340M, sues corporation for publishing wrong numbers
A lottery player who thought he had won is now suing after discovering that the lottery corporation had published the wrong winning numbers.
Jonathan Cheeks, a 60-year-old man from Washington, DC, told NBC4 Washington that he had purchased a Powerball ticket on January 6, 2023, playing a combination of family birthdays.
“I’m not a regular except when the jackpot goes up,” he said. At the time, a big prize was up for grabs: US$340 million.
The next day, Cheeks checked the numbers on his laptop and couldn’t believe what he saw: his numbers matched the winning numbers on the screen.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I turned my laptop off, unplugged it, took it down, and started it up again,” he said. “There were the numbers again, matching my ticket.”
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He said he called his friend to share the news.
“I got a little excited, but I didn’t shout, I didn’t scream, I just politely called a friend, I took a picture as he recommended, and that was it,” he recalled. “Yeah, I went to sleep.”
According to the lawsuit, the DC Lottery website showed the winning numbers for three days until the correct numbers were then published on January 10.
When Cheeks tried to claim his winnings, he stated that an employee said, “Hey, this ticket is no good; throw it in the trash can.”
NBC4 Washington
He recalled giving the employee a stern look and saying, “I think I’ll just keep this.”
Cheeks described it as “a very humiliating day.”
According to Powerball, DC-based Taoti Enterprises was doing a test on the website and posted the wrong numbers by mistake.
Cheeks’ attorney, Richard Evans, said, “They have said that one of their contractors made a mistake. 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?”
Powerball said that it does not comment on ongoing lawsuits.
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