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DC man says he’s owed $340 million after incorrect winning Powerball numbers posted

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DC man says he’s owed 0 million after incorrect winning Powerball numbers posted


A 60-year-old Washington, D.C., man thought he became an overnight multimillionaire but now he’ll have to argue in court to retrieve the $340 million fortune he says Powerball unlawfully denied him.

John Cheeks’ January 2023 Powerball ticket indicated he’d won $340 million, but when he attempted to redeem the prize, he got denied and told to throw his jackpot “in the trash can,” according to the complaint filed in November 2023.

Cheeks’ suit alleges he was deprived of his winnings due to “unlawful collusion” by Powerball, the Multi-State Lottery Association and Taoti Enterprises — a D.C.-based digital advertising agency that operates the D.C. Lottery website. The named defendants did not honor the posted winning Powerball numbers that matched Cheeks’ lottery ticket, according to the suit.

USA TODAY contacted Powerball, the Multi-State Lottery Association and Taoti Enterprises but did not receive a response.

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“This is not merely about numbers on a website; it’s about the reliability of institutions that promise life-changing opportunities, while heavily profiting in the process,” Rick Evans, Cheeks’ attorney, told USA TODAY. “… We intend to collect every penny to which (Cheeks) is entitled to right this wrong.”

How did Cheeks find out he’d won?

Cheeks bought the “winning ticket” Jan. 6, 2023, from a licensed retailer, according to the suit. He told USA TODAY that he chose the ticket’s numbers by using family birthdates. The numbers Cheeks chose were “07-15-23-32-40” with a Powerball number of 2, the suit says.

“All the numbers that I have played are totally common significant related numbers to me and my life,” he said.

The live drawing of the numbers occurred Jan. 7, 2023, but Cheeks said he didn’t rush to check his ticket due to him being “exhausted as hell” from a meeting with his accountant that day. Unbeknownst to Cheeks, the winning numbers on the website that day matched the ticket he’d bought.

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When Cheeks checked the D.C. Lottery website the following morning, he saw he’d won the jackpot due to his numbers matching the winning numbers, the suit says.

The odds of winning a Powerball jackpot are about 1 in 292.2 million.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes so I turned my laptop off, unplugged it, took it down and started it up again,” Cheeks said. “There were the numbers again, matching my ticket.”

Although Cheeks had possibly won millions, he recalled not being excited, but “exhausted” and “numb.”

With a clear head, Cheeks said he called a friend who told him to take a picture of the winning ticket because “you never know what could go wrong.” Cheeks held off from redeeming the ticket that day so he could wait and meet with advisors beforehand, he said.

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Taoti claims posting of Cheeks’ numbers was ‘a mistake’

For the next three days, the D.C. Lottery website showed the winning numbers. By Jan. 10, 2023, the numbers on the website had changed and differed from the ones shown since Jan. 7, according to the suit.

During an administrative hearing May 2, 2023, Taoti claimed that it “accidentally” posted Cheeks’ winning numbers to the D.C. Lottery website Jan. 7, the suit says. The company then said the “mistake” wasn’t removed from the website until Jan. 9.

That the numbers were erroneously posted on the D.C. Lottery site explains why Cheeks’ personal numbers didn’t match the numbers Cheeks saw when he went to a licensed retailer and checked his ticket against what was posted at the Office of Lottery and Gaming claiming center in D.C., the lawsuit says.

More lottery: Powerball winning numbers for Feb. 17 drawing: Jackpot worth over $300 million

While at the claim center, one of the officials told Cheeks to throw the ticket away “in the trash can” and that “we’re not going to pay you for it,” he said.

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“I gave the guy a look and said ‘I think I’ll just keep this,’” Cheeks said. “He looked at me and I walked out. That was a very humiliating day.”

Brittany Bailey, the project manager at Taoti, said in court documents that Cheeks’ “attempted scheme” is a way to capitalize on an “obvious error” on the D.C. Lottery website. Rather than posting random numbers on a “test website” by Taoti, as intended, they were mistakenly posted Jan. 6 on the D.C. Lottery Website, she said.

“First, any ordinary person knows that winning lottery numbers are not posted or advertised in advance; they cannot be because they have not been drawn yet,” Bailey said in the court filings. “Second, the list of numbers posted did not include a Powerball number, but simply a blank red ball. These red flags would cause any reasonable person to know that they were not the valid winning numbers for the following day.”

The test numbers posted on Jan. 6 remained on the D.C. Lottery website even after the correct numbers were posted, Bailey said. When Taoti employees saw the test numbers, they realized the error and took them down, she said.

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What did Cheeks do with the Powerball ticket?

Cheeks’ Powerball ticket is currently in a safe deposit box, he said.

If Cheeks is granted the money, he said he’ll open up a bank like Homestead and HomeTrust that would help people who normally wouldn’t qualify for a home mortgage.

“We’re going to build (and) rehab homes from D.C., to Maryland, Virginia and any other place that we’re needed to help solve the homeownership crisis,” Cheeks said.

The Powerball jackpot grew to $754.6 million before a ticketholder in Washington state claimed the prize on Feb. 6, 2023.

Evans said the D.C. Lottery and Powerball are aggressively marketing to consumers in D.C. and others on a national and international stage. The companies’ failure to make a public service announcement once they realized the game was compromised only led to them selling more tickets and “generating an enormous amount of revenue,” he said.

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“As the pot grows, more people play and DC and Powerball make tremendous amounts of money on those ticket sales,” Evans said. “… This lawsuit raises critical questions about the integrity and accountability of lottery operations and the safeguards—or lack thereof—against the type of errors that Powerball and the DC Lottery contend occurred in this case.”

Due to the D.C. Lottery and Powerball’s “alleged error,” Evans said Cheeks should be paid out the winnings because precedent exists of them paying declared winners when a similar situation occurred in Iowa.

Iowa lottery officials blamed an unspecified “human reporting error” in November 2013 after posting the wrong Powerball numbers, which remained on its website for more than six hours. Anyone who cashed in their winning tickets was still able to claim their prizes, which ranged from $4 to $200, the Associated Press reported.



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Washington, D.C

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

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Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week


4 things to know about the weather:

  1. Chances of rain in the morning
  2. Gusty Sunday
  3. Chilly Monday
  4. Temps will rise again through the work week

Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.

After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.

The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.

Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.

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However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.

QuickCast

SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s

MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s

Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.



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‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

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‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington


The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.

In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.

“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”

Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.

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Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.

“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.

“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”

Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”

A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.

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Rachel Reeves posted this image on Instagram from Washington DC on Thursday with the message: ‘Friends that run together – work together.’ Photograph: Rachel Reeves/Instagram

Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.

Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.

But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.

“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”

At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.

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The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.

Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.

For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.

“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.

“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”

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For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.

In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.

Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.

“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”





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Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos

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Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos


Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.

Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.

Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.

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You can learn more and book your table here.



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