When the Powerball prize structure changed 10 days ago, Al Ramos of Albuquerque had no idea that a last-minute $2 decision would become a life-changing experience.
Ramos correctly matched all five white ball numbers for the September 7 Powerball drawing. And by spending an extra $2 for the Power Play multiplier option on his $2 Powerball purchase, Ramos tripled a $200,000 prize into the New Mexico Lottery's first-ever $600,000 prize.
The $600,000 prize is the fourth-largest New Mexico Lottery prize ever, after three multi-million dollar Powerball jackpots.
Ramos correctly matched 12-32-40-50-54 and the Power Play of 3, but missed the red Powerball, 37. It was also the first time that Ramos had ever bought the Power Play multiplier option, which can multiply Powerball prizes from 2 to 5 times.
He bought the quick-pick ticket at the convenience store where he works part time.
"I went to work Thursday and the manager thought that we had sold a winning $600,000 ticket with Power Play," he said at Lottery headquarters. "I pulled the ticket out of my wallet. We scanned it. 'There it is,' I told her."
Ramos immediately called his wife Paula and asked her to come to the store, but wouldn't tell her why.
"I was worried," she said at Lottery headquarters on Friday. "When I got there he was pacing back and forth like a lion. He told me that he had just won Powerball and showed me the ticket."
Ramos remained stunned for a while, continuously looking at a printout stating that a $600,000 prize had to be claimed at the Lottery.
After paying some bills, the couple plans to save and invest their prize while adding to their daughter's college fund. The pair also said they are pleased that Lottery proceeds are used for a college scholarship program.
"Knowing that it goes for education is important," Ramos said. "It does good work."
This prize was claimed three weeks after MSgt. John San Cartier took a lump-sum payment for winning a $93.4 million Powerball jackpot, and seven weeks after a Roswell couple claimed a $500,000 Extravaganza Scratcher top prize. It is the second time in New Mexico that a Powerball second prize was increased by Power Play.
The winning $600,000 Powerball prize was purchased at Kicks 66, 7524 Menaul NE in Albuquerque. Ironically, Ramos realized that he had won on the store's fifth anniversary as a New Mexico Lottery Retailer.
In addition to 162 $100,000 to $600,000 winners in New Mexico (five winning numbers but no Powerball), there have been 826 $5,000 to $25,000 third prize (four winning numbers plus the Powerball).
The New Mexico Lottery has already raised more than $250 million for public education, including more than $182 million for the Lottery Success Scholarship program. Well over 35,000 students so far have received their in-state college tuition paid by the Lottery Success Scholarship, with an updated student count pending.
Cool story. Bought Powerplay with a QP, which I can't imagine any circumstances I'd do, and it paid.
Good seeing NM getting a bit of the geetus occasionally, especially when the odds are stacked against him as badly as those were with the PP option.
I'd shake this guy's hand if I ran into him, tell him I take my hat off to him for taking a risk I'd never take and having it pay off.
I buy a QP every draw, incidently, as well as my picked numbers. Lately I've been noticing the QP numbers seem to be doing a middling good job of being numbers on my long-list of picks, sort of aghast about it, in fact.
Jack
Always glad to hear of a winner. Congradulations to him.
I wonder what the percent of Powerplay winners are. I would asume small.
The number of winners with PowerPlay is shown in the results at USAMEGA. A link is on the left of the page.
I looked down the list, under Powerball, and went to each link. I couldn't find: What number of players used the Powerplay option? I saw that 44K+ players won with Powerplay, but how many put down the extra dollar? I was trying to guessimate whether that extra dollar pays off that often.
To find out whether the extra dollar would pay off, I don't think we need to figure out how many tickets with powerplay option were actually sold. Based on the fact that part of the first dollar goes to the jackpot as well as some non-jackpot prizes and the powerplay multiplication of the winnings does not apply to the jackpot, I guess that beyond a certain level of jackpot amount one would be better off by spending that extra dollar on buying another ticket instead of buying the powerplay option.
Say PB jackpot reaches 200M+. Do I really want to buy the powerplay option? Definitely I wouldn't. Instead, I would buy another ticket with the extra dollar that would let me go for the giant jackpot.
I looked down the list, under Powerball, and went to each link. I couldn't find: What number of players used the Powerplay option? I saw that 44K+ players won with Powerplay, but how many put down the extra dollar? I was trying to guessimate whether that extra dollar pays off that often.
I can only report what MUSL is willing to report. Since they did not release that information, I cannot report it.
One thing that I think I have done is to ORGANIZE the information better than the other web sites out there.
Not complaining about your site Todd. I don't have time to read everything on it. Tons of data. I don't see how you have a life with all those links. I was just curious about the number.
Cop5902 has a valid point I didn't think about. On large jackpots, the money is better spent on the big number, not the little number. I never bet to make second place, always first.
I was curious when I went down to buy my tickets, whether there'd be any conversation about this $600K PP win.
Nobody much seemed aware of it, but a guy outside thought it was "'pure horse manure' for a man to win a lottery with a jackpot that size, pay an extra dollar, and only get $600,000," when I tried to explain. He was hot and I didn't figure it was worth the effort to try to explain further.
If Powerball and the NM Lottery Authority can't communicate with their players well enough to explain Powerplay, I'm surely not going to do it for them.
Seems to be a bit of confusion down in Bernalillo town regarding Powerplay, in any case. At least with one player.
Jack