Today’s Daily Lunch Special: One Powerball® Prize Winning Ticket for $1,000,000

A daily lunch customer at Public Market of Newington, Michael Daly of Wethersfield stopped by for a sandwich, only to realize that he didn’t bring any cash.  “So, I checked my (lottery) tickets in the Ticket Checker, hoping that I’d win enough to pay for lunch,” Daly told Lottery officials.  “Scanning my tickets, I had about $18 that I won, so I thought, ‘Great—I have enough for lunch.’  The next ticket I scanned said, ‘Congratulations’ you won $1,000,000.”

The winning Powerball numbers drawn on April 3 were 1 – 6 – 8 – 12 – 35.   Daly’s “Quick Pick” ticket matched the first five numbers drawn, but missed the Powerball number, 3.   In total, 8,206 winning Powerball tickets were sold in CT on that date with prizes ranging from $4 to $1,000,000.

The day that Daly discovered his million dollar win, Public Market’s store owner, Joe Lenares, was on hand to help verify his winning ticket.  “We cheered, we high fived and then I made him a sandwich,” said Lenares with a laugh.  “I’ve known Mike for 10-12 years.  He’s very deserving.  We are all very happy for him.”

Today, Daly arrived at CT Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill with Lenares, to accept a prize check for $683,000 (value after taxes).   For selling Daly his $1,000,000 prize winning Powerball ticket, Public Market will receive a $2,000 bonus check from the CT Lottery.

Daly joins Connecticut’s growing list of lucky Powerball “Match 5” winners, increasing the total number of lucky wins to 18 since the new Powerball game began on January 15, 2012—13 were worth $1,000,000, plus another 5 that were Power Played® for the game’s $2,000,000 prize. 

The overall odds of winning a Powerball prize are 1 in 31.8 based on a $2.00 play.  Odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 175,223,510.