Powerball: Lottery winner in Missouri had $28.96 in bank account
He had $28.96 in his bank account, and was driving a 12-year-old Ford Ranger that he bought for $1,000 and was paying off in $100 installments.
Until Wednesday night's Powerball drawing. Chris Shaw, a 29-year-old tattooed father of three in rural southern Missouri, came forward Thursday with the $258.5 million winning Powerball ticket.
“We didn’t come from money. For us it’s just going to be a huge relief to know I’m going to be able to pay my electric bill, my gas bill,” Shaw told The Associated Press. “It’s like a weight lifted. I had bills at home I didn’t know how they were going to be paid.”
So, dude: WHY WERE YOU PLAYING THE LOTTERY?
The winning numbers were 11-34-41-49-55 Wednesday. The Powerball was 20.
He bought the ticket at a convenience store called Break Time in Marshall, where he works. Well, worked.
Snarky comment: I guess the next-happiest person in Missouri will be an unnamed dentist, who looks like there's a lucrative job ahead, and a client able to pay.
The next drawing is Saturday, for $20 million.
Webcasts of Florida Lottery drawings are available on the Lottery's Web site at flalottery.com. You may also sign up for SMS text alerts of the winning numbers by sending the keyword LOTTO to 23539.
And remember to bookmark me.
More from the AP story, which tells a tale pretty consistent with his picture:
He plans to seek advice "from people who know about money" about whether to take the jackpot in 30 payments over 29 years or the lump-sum amount of $124,875,122.
His boss, Jackie Maxwell, general manager of the Missouri-based Break Time convenience store chain, was thrilled to hear Shaw had won.
"He's just a great guy, a good employee. When you think of a large winner like this, everyone likes to see that the person who won is somebody like Chris," she said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Shaw — who has a 10-year-old son, a 7-year-old girl and a 5-year-old girl by two different women — said he had played Missouri Scratchers lottery tickets before, winning at most $80. He checked his Powerball ticket against the state lottery's website only after his girlfriend, Tosha Ewry, told him the winning ticket was bought at the store where he works.
When Shaw called Ewry back to tell her the news, she thought he was joking, he said. Finally, he said he told her: "I swear on a stack of Bibles, you need to leave work and come home."
Shaw said he looks forward to spending more time with his kids, who live with their mothers about 240 miles southeast of him in his hometown of Alton, as well as with his girlfriend's two sons — 13-year-old and 15-year-old boys Shaw says he considers his own. He plans to take them all to Disney World in Florida.
"I can be with them as much as I want now," Shaw said.
He said his children already have been asking for new skateboards, bicycles and "just stuff that's really hard to do when you make $7.25 an hour."
Break Time will receive $50,000 for selling the winning ticket. If Shaw takes a lump-sum payment, the state income taxes due on the winnings would be about $6 million, state budget director Linda Luebbering said.
NICK SORTAL began playing 3-card "gut" and "Indian poker" on high school band trips, moved on to "night baseball" and "pass the trash" during a Dr. Pepper-infused midnight game in the 1980s at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and now play in a regular neighborhood Hold 'Em game in Plantation. I have been given the assignment of writing about the gambling life in South Florida casinos for the Sun-Sentinel...which means sitting around watching poker on TV now counts as research.
