A man who won an incredible fortune wasn’t given a penny due to one mistake.
It’s not every day you win $340 million (£270 million) on the lotto, but John Cheeks did.
But sadly, his happiness was short-lived after the US man left empty-handed thanks to a fault.
The Washington native bought himself a Powerball ticket on 6 January 2023 and selected his own numbers - his family’s birth dates (7, 15, 23, 32 and 40 with a Powerball number of 2).
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The following day, he missed out on watching the live prize draw but when he checked the website 24 hours later, his winning numbers flashed on the screen.
Cheeks believed he was now a very wealthy man and even took a photo of the webpage to commemorate the moment.
However, when he went to redeem the ticket at a store on 10 January, he was told that the numbers on the website, and the ticket, were not the same that were displayed on the live televised broadcast.
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The man claimed that he decided to go to the official DC Office of Lottery and Gaming to double-check whether he could get his prize money, and they rejected his ticket as being eligible.
He said someone in the office had told him: “This ticket is no good, just throw it in the trash can.’”
The man explained: “I gave him a stern look. I said, ‘In the trash can?’
“’Oh yeah, just throw it away. You’re not gonna get paid. There’s a trash can right there.’”
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Because of his belief that he should be entitled to the payment because of the numbers on the website matching his ticket, he has since sued Powerball and the DC Lottery.
Richard Evans, who represented Cheeks, said he was told that a ‘mistake’ has been made by an advertising agency for DC Lottery, Taoti Enterprises.
The company claimed it accidentally posted the wrong numbers on the site.
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“They have said that one of their contractors made a mistake,” Evans told NBC4. “I haven’t seen the evidence to support that yet.”
Regardless, he believes Cheeks deserves a resolution to the matter after he was led to believe he would become a multimillionaire.
He filed his documents against the companies with Columbia’s district court and in November 2024, the Powerball company filed its own motion to dismiss the suit as they claimed the company did not fall into the jurisdiction of the court.
The company is based in Florida, not D.C.
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The Florida Lottery moved to dismiss the case under the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b), which claims a ‘lack of personal jurisdiction, insufficient process, insufficient service of process, and failure to state a claim’.
After months of back and forth, the court eventually determined that Cheeks ‘failed to establish that this Court maintains personal jurisdiction over Defendant, and that the case must therefore be dismissed’.
On January 22, 2025, Cheeks filed a motion under ‘Plaintiff’s Motion for Payment Demand of Lottery Jackpot on January 07,[ ]2023 and Payment for Unjust Enrichment by Defendant Powerball of Florida and Known Actors with Unknown Actors of July 19,[ ]2023 Prize.’
Because of the lack of personal jurisdiction over the Florida Lottery, this motion was also denied.
Britt Jones