A Powerball participant has initiated legal action against Powerball and the DC Lottery, claiming he was unjustly denied a jackpot of $340 million despite his ticket numbers matching those listed on the lottery’s website last year—a discrepancy the company later attributed to an error.
As the New York Post reported, John Cheeks secured a Powerball ticket on January 6, 2023, enticed by the jackpot reaching $340 million. According to a legal complaint filed in November, Cheeks, who used his family’s birthdates for the numbers, missed the live drawing on January 7 and delayed verifying his numbers due to the slim chances of winning the Powerball jackpot—estimated at 1 in 292.2 million.
Upon checking the DC Lottery’s website the day after the drawing, Cheeks discovered his numbers listed as winning, leading him to believe he had secured the first multimillion-dollar jackpot of the year. He recounted to NBC 4 how he calmly shared the news with a friend and took a photo of the ticket before going to sleep, with the website continuing to display his supposed winning numbers for three days.
However, the numbers on the website did not match those drawn during the live Powerball event. When Cheeks attempted to claim his prize at a licensed retailer on January 10, he learned that his ticket did not match the live-drawn numbers. Further attempts to verify the win at the DC Office of Lottery and Gaming prize centre also confirmed he was not the winner, with officials advising him to discard the ticket.
Despite this, Cheeks has preserved the ticket in a safety deposit box. Richard Evans, representing Cheeks, disclosed that a lottery contractor later admitted to a mistake by Taoti Enterprises, the digital advertising agency managing the DC Lottery’s website, which had inaccurately posted the winning numbers.
Evans highlighted the lack of evidence to substantiate the claim of an error and stressed the need for a resolution in favour of his client, questioning the appropriate response to such a mistake.
The contested jackpot eventually escalated to $754.6 million before being claimed by a ticket holder in Washington on February 6. This incident follows a similar situation in Iowa in November 2023, where incorrect numbers due to a “human reporting error” remained on the lottery’s website for over six hours, allowing some early claimants to receive prizes ranging from $4 to $200, as reported by Fox 9.
