Retired grandpa wins $344 million Powerball jackpot — picking the numbers from a fortune cookie

Fortune cookies usually contain tiny notes with feel-good messages or life lessons, which don't promise any monetary gains. But a man from North Carolina won the Powerball jackpot after trusting the numbers found in a fortune cookie while buying a lottery ticket. Charles W. Jackson Jr., a 66-year-old man, came forward to collect the $344 million prize and thanked his granddaughter for ordering the fortune cookie. 

A Fortune Cookie in the True Sense

Announcing his big win at a news conference, Jackson revealed that he came across the lucky numbers during a recent trip to a Vietnamese restaurant with his granddaughter. He mentioned that he broke the cookie and found a series of numbers on the back of the paper inside it. Jackson used those very numbers and luckily unlocked an actual fortune worth hundreds of millions. “You play to win, but you never really expect to win the whole dang pot,” Jackson told North Carolina Education Lottery officials.

Even after learning that he had won, Jackson initially thought that he only bagged a prize of around $50,000. But, when he finally saw the last digit, Jackson realized that he had hit the jackpot. “I said, ‘Dang, I got them all,” he recalled.

After looking up the value of the grand prize, Jackson broke the news to his wife. According to the local NBC news station WRAL, the couple then drove down to the Raleigh headquarters to collect their prize. Jackson, who reportedly used to own a shop selling military goods, chose to take the lump sum cash and walked away with a whopping $223.3 million after taxes. However, as per NBC, Jackson will have to pay another set of steep taxes which would leave him with roughly $158 million at the end.

Fulfilling Promises and Giving Back

At first, Jackson had no idea what he was going to do with the prize money. “I hope it doesn’t change me a lot. I’m still going to wear my jeans. Maybe newer ones," he said. Later, Jackson revealed that he plans to give away a part of his fortune to charity. According to PEOPLE, he planned to donate to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Shriners Hospitals for Children, and the Wounded Warrior Project.

He further shared that he would give $1 million to his brother with whom he had a deal. The two brothers promised that if any one of them won a lottery, the winner would give the other a million dollars from the prize. 

In the past, fortune cookies have been lucky for people in rare cases. One of them was Charles Svatos from Iowa, who broke a fortune cookie that read “You will discover an unexpected treasure.” Coincidentally, Svatos had a lottery ticket with him and when he checked his lotto numbers, he learned that he had won $390,000, Vice reported. 

Svatos told reporters that he had been trying his luck with the lottery since it started in the 1980s, and he did not expect to win despite the prediction.