A dedicated lottery player has won a $1 million Powerball prize after playing the same numbers every week for two decades.
Robert Winburn, 49, from Urbandale, Iowa, got his lucky numbers after assigning numbers to the letters of the alphabet and uses the corresponding numbers in his last name as his Powerball numbers.
Previously he had only ever won $100 in one drawing. But his luck changed on Saturday night after he bought a ticket from a gas station.
Winburn matched the first five numbers, but missed the Powerball in Saturday's $330.8 million jackpot drawing to win $1 million. Saturday's winning numbers were 2, 9, 14, 21, and 23, with Powerball number 3. The Power Play number was 3.
No one matched all six numbers that night, so the big prize has climbed to an estimated $400 million annuity ($227.8 million cash option) for Wednesday.
He said he didn't know that he had a $1 million-winning ticket until he scanned his tickets Sunday using a self-checker at an Urbandale grocery store.
"I put the first three (tickets) in and no win," Winburn told lottery employees Tuesday as he claimed his prize at the lottery's headquarters in Des Moines.
"Then (the winning) one came up. I just kind of glanced at it."
Winburn said he scanned his ticket a second time to double-check his luck,.
"I did tell the guy next to me, 'I don't believe this,'" he said. "And he leaned over and I did it again and he says, 'Sign it and get the heck out of here.'"
Winburn doesn't have any big plans to waste his new-found fortune — he said he is going to buy a new car, pay his bills and then invest the rest of his winnings.
Winburn's ticket was one of nine across the country that each won a $1 million prize in Saturday's drawing.
A ticket sold in Texas won a $2 million prize because whoever bought it also added the Power Play option to the purchase.
The last $1 million-winning Powerball ticket sold in Iowa hit in November and is still unclaimed three months later.
The nation's biggest lottery prize was a $656 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012 that was shared by three winning tickets sold in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland. The second-largest came in December, a $636 million Mega Millions prize.
The two winning tickets were purchased in San Jose, Calif., and Atlanta.
The biggest Powerball jackpot ever was a $590.5 million prize won by a Florida woman last May.
Congrats to him and his family... If you play your own numbers play in every drawing. You never know when your numbers will come in.
Patience Pays. Congrats to the lucky winner.
Congratulation Mr. Winburn
He has more dedication to those numbers then most folks do towards marriage !!!! (prolly gonna take hell on that one) but, WTF...It's HUMP DAAAAAAAAAY...I love that commercial
I play my own numbers although I do buy one extra QP ticket when it gets over $200,000,000. I keep telling myself to stop playing my own numbers but if they came up and I didn't play them it would be a very long day, month, year and for that matter lifetime of me kicking myself. Good for him!
Congratulations Mr. Robert Winburn on your persistence. It really paid off!
Aha! He won using the Lustig method!
I'm sure Dick will be along any minute now to espouse the virtues of his proven winning method.
I wonder how much he spent over those past 20 years.
well FW....$2-10 a week(might be a reasonable figure) X 52 weeks X 20 years....I would take that return on my investment for 20 years
WOOOOOOOOOO CONGRATS MR WINBURN!!! ENJOY THAT I WISH I COULD WIN LIKE THAT BUT ENJOY SIR!!!!
Congratulations Mr,Rob Winburn spend Wisely
"I did tell the guy next to me, 'I don't believe this,'" he said. "And he leaned over and I did it again and he says,
'Sign it and get the heck out of here.'"
lol, He believed and it paid off, nice job Robert.
Good question, lot and lots would be my guess.
Congratulations!! Enjoy your win!
That's exactly what I thought too.
, CDanaT! So, figure Roger spent $8/week on self-picked and machine-picked tickets in Powerball game ONLY; he'd have spent, less small quarterly wins, approximately $8,100 after 20 years time. Thus, this after income taxed apx. $499K Net lottery jackpot win is a wonderful, 20-year return! Congratulations Roger!
Regardless, Roger probably now realizes that he was foolish not to have played buying the additional multiplier EACH ticket, once that option became available in recent years, though! He could have been done with stressful gambling every 3.5 days if he had, a shame.
Big congrats Roger!! i play a set of numbers faithfully as well along with a extra set of new picks each week
4 number are either birthdates or ages , which I need to start playing ,
Like today in mega , I won $10.00 because it had one age and one birthdate .
I noticed this several times with mega and powerball numbers ...
Again .....it's been playing ..........birthdates / Ages .
My Mass Cash game numbers have not come all these years and yet the odds for matching the top prize are a mere 1:324,632 so Mr Winburn is incredibly lucky on top of being very patient. Congratulations. Shine on some of that luck to the rest of us.
Well I am still waiting on my powerball numbers too to come in but it has only been three years so I got seventeen more years to go.-weshar75
Congrats to him!!!! Persistence paid off!!!
Hang in there, when you least expect it, it happens.
Plenty of people go this route of playing the same numbers for years and years and never win. That is why I think patience + LUCK = jackpot. Luck is a big part of it.