Virginia woman accidentally wins $1 million Powerball prize after making the 'best mistake' of her life

The emergence of the Powerball lottery in Virginia marks a significant milestone in the state's gaming landscape. The lottery game has become a staple for Americans and now Virginians can join in too. The game is a big deal for many people in the United States as it stirs hope and excitement about winning huge amounts of money that could change lives. Many people stack up their life savings just to participate with the hope of winning the Powerball jackpot which has a probability of 1 in 292.2 million. The game is open to everyone, making all participants dream about becoming millionaires overnight.

The unexpected Powerball lottery win

One such incident recently happened with a woman named Miriam Long living in Christiansburg, Virginia who made a lucky mistake of purchasing the lottery ticket. She went to a CVS store in Blacksburg to purchase a Mega Millions ticket for the upcoming big jackpot of $893 million on March 18, 2024. By mistake, she pressed the Powerball ticket button and acted pretty normal as winning chances were pretty low. To her surprise, her ticket matched the first five winning numbers i.e. 10-17-20-39-44, and the Powerball number was 16 (the only number that did not match), which made her win a whopping amount of $1 million. “It’s the best mistake of my life!” Long said.

The astonishing part is Long used the option of Easy Pick where the user can instruct the computer to pick numbers arbitrarily. After she realized she had won that whopping amount, Long said, "My heart was pounding! It’s overwhelming!" The Virginia Lottery then announced that whichever store sold the $1 million ticket would get a staggering bonus of $10,000. In the exciting world of unexpected Powerball wins, luck and timing play a huge role in making the common people believe that they too can become millionaires overnight. A lucky person in New Jersey ultimately hit the Mega Millions jackpot for $1.13 billion in the March 26 drawing, as per Associated Press.

Powerball jackpot supersedes limits

Powerball and Mega Millions are among those exciting adventures that Americans live for. Recently, the Powerball jackpot went up to a whopping amount of $1.09 billion, as per Associated Press. One winner from California in November 2022, won the largest Powerball jackpot with a $2.04 billion prize. Luck plays a major role when it comes to lotteries where people sometimes win big without expecting it. These wins can start with something simple, like deciding on a whim to buy a lottery ticket and then luck strikes before the lives of winners change completely. Absurd stories are a part of these lottery games. A woman once claimed that she had won the jackpot just a day after Powerball revealed that a store in California had sold a ticket worth $1.08 billion. It was later discovered that the woman's claims were false and she had probably declared herself the winner to gain attention.

This article originally appeared 7 months ago.