Possible lottery winner deemed radio station prank
Monday, February 20, 2006 posted 01:34 PM EST
Officials investigating a man's claim to be the big winner traced the phone call to the station and said they believed it was a hoax.
The winning ticket was sold at a U-Stop convenience store in Lincoln on Friday.
Earlier Monday, Tom Johnson, spokesman for the Nebraska Lottery, discussed the call from Colorado and said a man "described the people who were selling the tickets, the conversation they had and the whole bit."
Whoever the winner is has six months to claim the prize, and Johnson warned the lucky person to plan well.
"We advise them to sign the ticket and get ahold of somebody who is steeped in financial matters, somebody who understands big money, 'cause this is big money," Johnson said.
Mick Mandl, owner of the U-Stop, said he had reviewed security surveillance camera video from Friday and saw four men and one woman in line when the winning ticket was sold at 3:09 p.m. (Watch what clues are on store surveillance cameras -- 1:58)
Mandl said his $50,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket will come in handy because business will be slow soon due to upcoming road work.
"They're going to close the main street by our store here down for a year, so we'll probably just need that to help make it through the tough times," Mandl said.
On Sunday, a clerk at the U-Stop said just about anyone in town could have purchased the winning ticket, according to The Associated Press.
"We get all kinds of clientele in here so it could be anywhere from a rich businessperson to somebody who lives in low-income housing across the street," Stacey Carey told the AP.
Carey said she hoped the winner would tip the person that sold the lucky numbers, the AP reported.
"If I sold the ticket to them, I hope they'd share in the winnings -- at least, even one-tenth of a percent would suit me just fine," she told AP.
15 + 17 + 43 + 44 + 48 + 29 = $365 million
The winning numbers were 15, 17, 43, 44, 48 and a Powerball number of 29.
If the lottery winner opts to be paid in cash, the payout would be $177.3 million, Brian Rockey of the Nebraska Lottery said Sunday. After Nebraska taxes, the final take would be $124 million, Rockey said.
Saturday's win represents the ninth jackpot win in the state for Powerball, which has been around since 1997 and is played in 28 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 146 million, according to the Powerball Web site.
Lottery players can turn their sights to another big jackpot. The Mega Millions game, played in 12 states, has an estimated top prize of $170 million for Tuesday night's drawing.
The Big Game, a forerunner of Mega Millions, held the previous jackpot record of $363 million, split by two players in 2000.
Powerball's previous record was a $340 million prize won by two Oregon families sharing a single ticket in October.
Powerball, run by the Multi-State Lottery Association in Des Moines, Iowa, will have a $15 million jackpot in Wednesday's next draw.
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