An amazed lotto winner has told how she won a USD 100,000 fortune after listening to her cousin’s uncannily accurate tip
Lucky Tina Renee Johnson – from the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia State, USA – bought her ticket in her local 7-Eleven store on a family shopping trip.
As the pair got to the checkout her cousin noticed that the Powerball game jackpot had soared and urged her to snap up a special Power Play ticket on 19th July.
The extra USD 1 (GBP 0.79) she spent catapulted her share of the USD 1 billion (GBP 788 million) jackpot to USD 100,000 (GBP 78, 764).
Tina explained: “My cousin made me do it! “
She added in a statement obtained by Newsflash from Virginia Lottery: “If it wasn’t for my cousin, I wouldn’t have paid an extra dollar for the Power Play.
“But she told me to do it, so now I always need to listen to her.”
Tina collected the prize at lottery headquarters in Richmond on 20th July.
She said she plans to donate some of the money to her local church and help out her cousin who boosted her win
Virginia Lottery said: “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. For more information on Powerball, visit the game’s site.
“All Virginia Lottery profits go to K-12 education in Virginia. Ms. Johnson lives in Virginia Beach, which received nearly USD 37.4 million [GBP 29.4 million] in Lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year.
“In Fiscal Year 2022, the Lottery raised more than USD 779 million [GBP 614 million] for K-12 education, making up approximately 10 percent of Virginia’s total K-12 school budget.”
