Omaha Woman Wins $1 Million Playing Powerball
Wendy Donahue of Omaha won $1 million playing Powerball from the Nebraska Lottery.
Donahue purchased her ticket at Baker’s #321 at 505 N 155th Plaza in Omaha. The ticket contained a winning play for the July 25 drawing which matched all five white ball numbers (25, 37, 38, 39, 65).
Before taking home the $1 million prize, Donahue said the biggest thing she’d ever won was a cake in a cake walk when she was 14.
She used to be a daily Powerball player until she decided to play a little less. When the Mega Millions jackpot grew to more than $1 billion, she stopped at Baker’s to pick up a few tickets. And, because old habits die hard, she decided to play Powerball as well.
Donahue and her husband Kevin heard there’d been a $1 million ticket sold at their Baker’s, so they decided to dig through their numbers.
“We thought, ‘What if?’,” Donahue said. “I zoned in on the third line and said, ‘I think we hit $1 million!’ We were both screaming.”
The Donahues quickly put their winning ticket in the safe until they could make it down to the Nebraska Lottery’s Lincoln offices on July 29. When the day came, they carefully placed the ticket in her purse and put it gently in the backseat of their car.
“That was the most stressful drive of my life,” Kevin said.
Powerball is a multi-state jackpot game currently offered by 45 state lotteries, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. The odds of winning $1 million playing Powerball are 1 in 11,688,053.52 while the overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 24.9.
Published on 08/01/2022