N.C. woman gets surprise lottery gift from brother
Maria Juana P. Tolentino, a resident of Candor in Montgomery County, North Carolina, thought she was finished with her family's Christmas on Wednesday. Little did she know that a late gift from her brother, a $5 Mega Bucks lottery ticket, would make her $100,000 richer.
Tolentino was sitting in her living room with her family when she realized she'd won the game's top prize.
At first I thought it was $100, she said. We were happy to win that. Then I kept scratching and saw it was much, mu ...
Dec 31, 2012, 2:45 pm - Lottery News forum
Cashier's mistake makes N.H. family lottery winners
A Hillsborough family is the newest New Hampshire Tri-State Megabucks winner, and it was all because of a mistake.
Hillsborough resident Scott Bennett wanted to buy tickets to two games on Wednesday, but the clerk made an error.
He went up to the register and said he'd like a Lucky For Life ticket and a Tri-State Megabucks Plus ticket, said Maura McCann, New Hampshire Lottery director of marketing.
Bennett was buying the tickets at a Hillsborough Circle K.
The clerk sold him two Tr ...
Dec 24, 2012, 8:12 am - Lottery News forum
Million-dollar lottery jackpot revives college dream for Brooklyn woman
Hard times forced Linza Ford to drop out of college, but a $1 million lottery jackpot has revived her educational dreams.
The 19-year-old Brooklyn woman was one of 10 lucky New Yorkers who collected oversized checks Thursday totaling $13 million in lottery winnings.
Ford had just completed her freshman year at Hofstra University when her dad had to go on disability and her family was forced to make sacrifices.
With money tight, Ford put her goals of earning a degree in psychology or soc ...
Dec 21, 2012, 7:12 am - Lottery News forum
Lottery winner Jack Whittaker's losing ticket
Jack Whittaker, a 55-year-old contractor from Scott Depot, W. Va., had worked his way up from backcountry poverty to build a water-and-sewer-pipe business that employed over 100 people. He was a millionaire several times over. But when he awoke at 5:45 a.m. on Christmas morning in 2002, everything he'd built in his life held only passing significance next to a scrap of paper in his worn leather wallet a $1 Powerball lottery ticket bearing the numbers 5, 14, 16, 29, 53, and 7.
Whittaker had pu ...
Dec 19, 2012, 10:03 am - Lottery News forum
Mass. co-workers split $50M Powerball jackpot
The two co-workers had a ritual for the past 10 months. She would buy two Powerball tickets, write their names on the back, and then give him a copy.
It may have seemed a modest indulgence. The longest of long shots.
But on Wednesday night, it paid off big-time with more than $11 million for each of them.
Rosa DeLeon, 52, of Arlington and Reginald LeBlanc, 54, of Lexington, who work at the Costco in Waltham, bought a $50 million Powerball ticket at a gas station in Lexington.
The two ...
Dec 19, 2012, 9:30 am - Lottery News forum
How lottery winners spend their money
Lottery winners: What separates the ones who live happily ever after from the ones who, five years later, wind up drunk, broke, in jail or hounded by the IRS?
Stephen Danish knows. In fact, the Virginia Commonwealth University professor of psychology is such an expert on the subject that the Virginia Lottery has hired him to counsel winners. Asked how many winners he has helped, he puts the number is in the double digits.
He once told the Roanoke Times that he can tell how well (or badly) ...
Dec 15, 2012, 12:41 am - Lottery News forum
Woman found guilty of murder in lottery winner's death
Includes video report
A Florida woman was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the slaying of a lottery winner in central Florida.
Dorice Dee Dee Moore showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Judge Emmett Battles sentenced her to mandatory life without parole for the murder and an additional minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years for using a gun in the commission of a felony.
Battles called Moore the most manipulative person he had ever seen, describing her as cold, calculating ...
Dec 11, 2012, 9:10 am - Lottery News forum
Arizona Lottery releases name of Powerball jackpot winner
The second winner of the $587.5 million Powerball jackpot is a 37-year-old electronics industry professional who grew up in a modest home in Pennsylvania and moved to an affluent Phoenix suburb last year before striking it rich in the lotto.
The winner is Matthew Good of Fountain Hills, who chose to remain anonymous after claiming the prize last week. Lottery winners in Arizona are a matter of public record, and The Associated Press filed a public records request to learn his name.
Good to ...
Dec 11, 2012, 8:52 am - Lottery News forum
Father charged with helping sons steal $5 million lottery ticket
The owner of a Syracuse, New York, convenience store was arrested this week on charges of conspiring with his son to steal a $5 million lottery ticket from a man who'd bought it at the store.
Nayef Ashkar, 56, was arrested Tuesday by an investigator with the Onondaga County District Attorney's Office on a charge of fourth-degree conspiracy.
Ashkar agreed with and encouraged his son, Andy Ashkar, in the taking and withholding of the $5 million winning scratch-off ticket from Robert Miles, a ...
Dec 10, 2012, 7:37 am - Lottery News forum
Arizona man claims other half of record Powerball jackpot
Remains anonymous
Looming tax increases prompt hasty claim
Fallout from the looming fiscal cliff has drifted into the Powerball arena.
A man who lottery officials announced Friday has claimed his half of the $587.5 million Powerball jackpot, decided to collect the winnings now and not next year because of the financial uncertainty posed by the nation's ongoing financial impasse.
The man, who is in his 30s from a wealthy Phoenix suburb, decided to remain anonymous after he bought $10 ...
Dec 8, 2012, 9:17 am - Lottery News forum
