BOISE, Idaho – It does only take one ticket to be a big Powerball winner. For Susan Worthington of Boise, buying that one ticket almost never happened last week during the historic jackpot run on Powerball.
$1,000,000 Powerball Winner; Susan Worthington!
“It was a fluke. I wouldn’t have bought it if Mom hadn’t told me to,” explained Worthington of how she found herself at the Albertsons on Ustick and Five Mile in Boise on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 about an hour before the draw. “I pulled into the store and bought five tickets. Then I took them over to my mother’s house and we took turns picking tickets. She picked one, I picked one and vice versa. I picked the winning ticket.”
At first she didn’t know how much her ticket was worth. Her mother, Jean Worthington-Byers, checked the numbers during the televised Powerball draw and texted them to her.
“I looked at the numbers and thought to myself, ‘how did Mom get my numbers?’ That looks a lot like they were on the ticket,” added Worthington.
She took her ticket back to Albertsons late on Wednesday night to check her numbers. When she arrived, she asked the night clerk, Julie Jackson, if the posted numbers were the winning numbers from the night’s draw. In the quiet late night hours at Albertsons, Jackson confirmed that Worthington’s lucky pick matched the first five numbers, but not the Powerball and won her $1,000,000. The two celebrated.
She bought her Key Fob!
Worthington plans to invest most of her winnings. With no extravagant purchases on the horizon, her spending has been limited to replacing the “key fob” for keyless entry to her car and taking her mother to lunch.
For their part in selling the winning ticket, Albertsons received a bonus from the Idaho Lottery of $20,000.
“It only takes one ticket to win. We bought five, but it does only take one to win,” said Worthington. “It’s going to make for a good Christmas.”
