Retailer owner who lost husband before forming group "had a feeling" she won before checking ticket

By Kate Northrop

HART, Mich. — A two-person Michigan lottery club won a $1 million Powerball prize and had to use a "special code word" with each other for the first time to celebrate the win.

A lottery retailer owner formed a two-person lottery club after she had lost her husband, and following a Powerball drawing in September, she "had a feeling" she had won before even checking the ticket.

Kristi Sadler, the owner of Kristi's Pour House on East Main Street in Hart, bought a ticket for the Powerball drawing on Sept. 11, 2023 on behalf of herself and the other club member she formed a lottery group with, called the CCKMA club.

"We started our lottery club after my husband passed away," Sadler told the Michigan Lottery. "The morning after the drawing, I got a call that my business had sold a $1 million winner, and I just had a feeling it was our ticket."

Sure enough, the ticket matched all five white ball numbers in the drawing, which were 9, 25, 27, 53, and 66. Had they matched the final Powerball number 5, they would have won the then-$526.5 million jackpot. Later in the same jackpot run, that prize would eventually become the second-largest lottery jackpot ever, having reached $1.76 billion and won by a single ticket bought in California.

However, $1 million is nothing to sneeze at, and the win meant that Sadler had the privilege of being the one to share the news with the other club member.

"After I checked the ticket, I had to call the other club member, who was on vacation out of the country, to let him know we had won," she recalled. "We had always joked that we'd use a special code word if we won, so when he answered and told me he had to pay extra for overseas calls, I said the code word and I told him he wasn't going to have to worry about the bill!"

Both players showed up at Lottery headquarters in Lansing to claim the prize, which they each plan to invest in their retirements.

The Powerball jackpot currently stands at $295 million for the next drawing on Mon., Nov. 20 at 10:59 pm Eastern Time.

Powerball is played in 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Drawings are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.

Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega (www.usamega.com).  The USA Mega Web site provides lottery players in-depth information about the United States's two biggest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.