A Huron County man found out he won a $1 million Powerball prize from the Michigan Lottery while watching the morning news.
Norman Doerr, of Ubly, matched the five white balls in the Oct. 19 drawing to win the big prize: 06-08-15-27-42. He bought his winning ticket at Fast Freddie’s, located at 2245 Main Street in Ubly. Ubly is about 50 miles east of Bay City.
“I started playing these two sets of numbers in the Powerball game about eight years ago,” said Doerr. “I was watching the news the morning after the drawing, and they showed the winning Powerball numbers from the night before. I recognized the numbers as soon as they came up on the screen and I knew I was a big winner! I had to pause the TV and look over the numbers a few times to make sure I wasn’t mistaken.”
Doerr, 62, recently visited Lottery headquarters to claim his prize. He plans to save his winnings for retirement.
“Winning is a great feeling and is going to allow me to retire earlier than I planned,” said Doerr.
The Powerball jackpot was last won on August 3. One ticket bought in Pennsylvania won the $206.9 million jackpot. The current jackpot stands at $1.5 billion for Saturday’s drawing.
If a lucky player wins Saturday’s $1.5 billion jackpot, it will be the second-largest Powerball jackpot ever won, and third-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history.
Powerball plays may be purchased for $2 each at Lottery retailers across the state and online at MichiganLottery.com. A “Power Play” option that multiplies non-jackpot prizes by up to 10 times to a maximum of $2 million may be added to any Powerball play for only $1. For an additional $1 per play, Double Play may be added to a Powerball ticket, giving players a second chance to win up to $10 million in the nightly Double Play drawing.
The Powerball drawing takes place at 10:59 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday and may be watched live online at: http://www.powerball.com. Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.