The Quiet Winners
People often ask how frequently winners come through the doors at Lottery HQ. It is the humble opinion of this writer that I win every time I walk into work each morning, so that answer is every day. On a more serious note, winners really do come in more often than one might think.
Truly, about every day some lucky winner comes in to claim a winning prize. Many of the stories we share on our website and this blog are ones that detail the tales of those people who are lucky enough to hold the golden tickets to prizes ranging from $1,000 to the $1 million dollar winning Powerball ticket sold last August. There are, however, stories you don’t get to hear – the stories of winners who wish their names not be publicized. These are the people we meet more often than not.
In Nebraska, the names of lottery winners is public record, but if a winner requests to not do any publicity, we will not post their name on our website, blog or social media. Their names are still on the record and the reasons for not wanting to have their name put out in a very public way ranges from having a bad hair day to being shy and afraid of saying something that could be seen as foolish. I must admit, some of the best stories I hear are from the camera shy winners.
One such story was a winner who had won $25,000 from a Scratch ticket. The winner was from a small town and came to claim their prize with their son. A retiree, living alone, she had a lot of home repairs that needed to be taken care of, including a faulty garage door, but she was stubborn and independent. Not weighing more than 90 lbs. soaking wet, this woman had no business opening her garage door by herself but she did it anyway, much to the chagrin of her son who felt there was no reason she should be messing with that garage door. A bit of an over-thinker, she worried she wouldn’t have enough to cover the garage door repairs and wanted to enjoy her prize. They went back and forth for a while and ultimately decided it was definitely at the top of the list of things she would fix with the money. After this discussion, she was asked if we could post her name for publicity. She politely declined, but she did give out a really great hug before leaving.
One of my all-time favorite stories came from a man who was incredibly charismatic. We see a lot of excited people come in but this winner takes the cake. He was by far the kind of person you wish you could meet every day due to his brutal honesty and comedic timing. As I walked into the room with the big check in-hand, he greeted me with a warm smile and I handed him the big check. He busted up laughing and started talking about how fun it was to win. I asked what his initial reaction was to winning. He said he saw the winning numbers but didn’t quite comprehend what he saw. Very slowly and carefully, he read the winning numbers for the Powerball drawing and compared them with his ticket. It took seven attempts at this before he said he finally understood what he saw. As he contemplated what had just happened, he told me he “almost messed in his pants.” I let out a nervous laugh at this and he returned with an even deeper and hardier laugh. He didn’t actually lose control of his body, but he felt comfortable enough with me to give me that colorful explanation of his surprise and, not-so-oddly enough, it has stuck with me. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting that encounter any time soon.
Winners coming into Lottery HQ definitely are more common than one might think but their stories are anything but ordinary.
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