Man Sues Powerball Over $340M ‘Mistake’

A man is suing Powerball and the D.C. Lottery over a $340 million mistake. He claims that he bought a Powerball ticket on Jan. 6, 2023, when the jackpot rose to an unprecedented amount. However, the numbers he saw posted on the D.C. Lottery’s website the following day that matched his ticket were not the real winning numbers.

John Cheeks alleges that he saw his numbers on the D.C. Lottery website on Jan. 8, 2023, after buying a ticket for the Powerball drawing held the previous day. In a legal action, Cheeks claims the numbers he picked, a mix of family members’ birthdates and other numbers, were visible online on the lottery’s website for three days.

But ultimately, the website numbers differed from those pulled out in the draw. Court documents allege that administrators have denied Cheeks’ jackpot claim, saying his ticket did not show as a winner by the OLG’s gaming system as required by OLG regulations.

Cheeks tried to redeem his prize at the lottery office, where a claims staffer told him that his ticket was “no good” and that he should “throw it in the trash can.” Instead, Cheeks put the ticket in a safe deposit box and contacted a lawyer regarding his next steps.

The numbers online did match the numbers on Cheeks’ ticket even though they were incorrectly entered by a staffer. Lottery officials called the event a “mistake.”

Cheeks is seeking damages from both Powerball and the D.C. Lottery. The jackpot that Cheeks believed he had won eventually grew to $754.6 million before a ticket holder in Washington claimed the prize on Feb. 6, 2023.

“They have said that one of their contractors made a mistake,” Cheeks’ attorney Richard Evans stated. “I haven’t seen the evidence to support that yet.”

He added that even if a mistake was made, “What do you do about that?” Evans cited a similar case to his client’s in Iowa, where a contractor admitted to a mistake and paid the winnings out.