As he was sitting down after a hard day's work, he methodically circled the numbers as they were announced on TV, only to discover that he had hit the US Powerball jackpot!
Steven West has worked for the US postal service for many years and every week, he'd purchase $20 worth of US Powerball lottery tickets for himself and seven of his colleagues. Steven was part of a syndicate that had previously won $12 as their biggest windfall. Yet it was his purchase in December 2015 at his local convenience store that made him just a little bit wealthier.
Here's how West's day played out:
"that morning I was not going to play there because we hadn't been doing any good there. But I was running errands and when I left for work, I passed up both of the stores closer to me and just happened to pass by and said, 'Well, I might as well play there,' and I stopped and played."
Steven waited until the morning after to check his tickets. "I'm circling the numbers as I go and I didn't notice until I got to the end and said, - Wait a minute, that's five numbers - I'm looking at the computer and looking at the tickets." In a state of absolute panic and excitement, Steven called another member of the lotto syndicate, asking him to check the numbers for him. When the numbers matched, Steven said that he went "a little crazy".
Since the $1 million has to be split eight ways, Steven and the remainder of the syndicate will only get $125 000 each, so his plans are to pay off his bills and take it easy as "It's not enough [money] to do anything crazy [with]." Despite that, Steven's life will be just that little bit easier from here on out.
