Powerball Winner Donald Damon, 70, was introduced on Friday 13th as the lucky winner of the Kansas Powerball lottery at the Kansas Lottery headquarters in Topeka. The Powerball draw, held two days earlier on November 11th 2009, produced a prize of $96.6 million which is the largest Powerball jackpot won in Kansas to date.
The previous biggest jackpot was won in 2000 when a syndicate of airline pilots had one of three tickets that matched the Powerball winning numbers for a $150 million jackpot. Mr Damon successfully matched all numbers in the draw: 08-12-14-22-29 with Powerball of 22.
You can see whether any of Donald’s life changing numbers are amongst the most and least drawn is previous draws in our Powerball numbers statistics section.
Mr Damon described the events that led him to realize he had matched the winning numbers from the Powerball results. “Yesterday, my daughter Karen told me that someone had won the Powerball jackpot in south central Kansas on Wednesday,” he said. “She told me that she knew she hadn’t won on her ticket, so I asked her to check my ticket”. Karen took up the story and told reporters “I said to Dad that he had matched the Powerball number and he jokingly said that he must be the winner,” said Karen.
“When we realized he did have the Powerball winning numbers, we were both so shocked.” Mr Damon and his daughter didn’t waste any time and immediately drove to the Kansas Lottery’s Great Bend office to claim the prize fund.
Like many previous Powerball winners, Mr Damon, who was a truck driver for nearly 30 years and who retired in January, opted to take his prize fund as a lump sum cash amount. After state and local taxes he will take home close to $34 million for his Kansas Powerball lottery jackpot.
Mr Damon said he has been buying lottery tickets since they were available in Kansas and the largest sum he had won previously was $250.
