Benjamin Baker is a Virginia man who won hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Powerball twice in the same drawing this month. According to a press release issued by the Virginia Lottery on Friday, the winning numbers in that drawing were 10-16-18-40-66, and the Powerball number was 16.
Normally it would have been a $50,000 prize for each winning ticket. Baker managed to match four of the winning numbers plus the Powerball number on two of his tickets.
Also Read | Who is Edwin Castro, $2.04 billion Powerball winner?
Who is Benjamin Baker?
Ben Baker is from Covington. On March 4, he bought a total of 10 tickets for the Powerball drawing at his local Food Lion grocery store. Since he spent an extra dollar on each ticket for the Power Play, the winning prizes tripled to $150,000 each. From the two winning tickets, Baker won a total of $300,000.
“I was really lucky!” Baker said. As to how he plans to spend the prize money, Baker told the lottery that he intends to use some of his winnings to improve his home. He will be saving the rest.
Also Read | Who is Jose Rivera? Man sues $2.04 billion Powerball lottery winner for stealing jackpot ticket
Powerball
Powerball drawings are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. According to the lottery, the odds of matching all six numbers to win the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million and the overall odds of winning any Powerball prize are 1 in 25.
Earlier this month, Ana Elizalde, 51, of Lansing, Michigan almost missed out on winning a $1 million Powerball prize. He bought the ticket in February and gave it to her husband for safekeeping. “A week after the drawing my husband found the ticket in his coat pocket and realized we had never checked it,” Elizalde said. “We went to the store to scan it and got a message to file a claim. When we checked the numbers online and realized we’d won $1 million.”