Double the luck: Massachusetts man accidentally wins $2M with identical Powerball tickets

There were eight winning Match 5 Powerball tickets during a Powerball drawing earlier this month. Those players who held tickets with the winning white balls numbers 5, 9, 25, 28, 69 got a $1 million prize. Amazingly, two of those were held by the same person.

Regularly, players would want to spread out their chances of winning with all of their tickets containing different combinations given the astronomical odds of winning the popular lottery game. However, Paul Corcoran of Fitchburg, Massachusetts made a small miscalculation that paid off big.

Doubling up paid out big

Corcoran had previously purchased a ticket for seven Powerball drawings but when the 9 July drawing came around for the estimated $217 million jackpot, he thought the drawing for his last ticket had already occurred. Not to miss out on the chance to take home such a large sum of money, he bought another ticket for that Wednesday’s drawing.

His small mistake that gave him two identical tickets for that night, which resulted in him winning $2 million in total, before taxes. He showed up at the Massachusetts State Lottery’s Dorchester headquarters to claim his winnings of Friday, 11 July.

He told officials that he doesn’t have any plans for what he will do with the winnings but said that “the win feels good.”

The Powerball jackpot has continued to grow since his double win and now sits at an estimated $293 million.

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