A patient wife has told how she kept a dream lotto win to herself so she didn’t wake her sleeping husband.
Overjoyed Elizabeth Downs, from Tabb, Virginia State, USA, realised she’d won the huge prize when she checked her ticket as soon as she woke up on 19th September.
But she held back from waking her still-sleeping husband and only told him when he’d woken up.
Elizabeth explained in a statement obtained by Newsflash from Virginia Lottery: “I was so in shock. I just kept pacing up and down the hall, trying not to wake my husband.”
The win followed after Elizabeth matched four of the winning numbers 2, 21, 26, 40, and 42, and the Powerball number 9, in the draw on 18th September.
Virginia Lottery representatives said: “Normally that would win USD 50,000 [GBP 41,149].
“However, she spent an extra dollar for Power Play when she bought the ticket. That extra buck tripled her prize to USD 150,000 [GBP 123,448].”
At lottery headquarters, Elizabeth said she let the computer randomly select the numbers on her ticket when she bought it at the local Kroger grocery store.
Virginia Lottery officials added: “Powerball drawings are held at 10.59pm Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
“The odds of matching all six numbers to win the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. The overall odds of winning any Powerball prize are 1 in 25.
“All Virginia Lottery profits go to K-12 education in Virginia.
“Ms. Downs lives in York County, which received nearly USD 5.4 million [GBP 4.4 million] in Lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year.
“In Fiscal Year 2023, the Lottery raised more than USD 867 million [GBP 713 million] for K-12 education, making up approximately 10 per cent of Virginia’s total K-12 school budget.”
