29 co-workers share $1 million Powerball prize

Feb 12, 2013, 4:25 pm (32 comments)

Kentucky Lottery

GOOD WILL:  Group votes to include absent pool members

For at least the past five years, a group of information technology employees at Louisville's Humana headquarters have pitched in a few bucks every week to buy Powerball tickets. A retailer is located in the office tower next door to their building. The most they'd ever won was $16 — until Wednesday night of last week, when the group matched all five white balls but not the Powerball to win $1 million.

The excitement started Thursday afternoon, when pool member Larry Thomas went to the Kentucky Lottery's website to see if any of his Powerball tickets were winners. "I saw where a million dollar winner had been sold next door at Straus, and that's where I buy my tickets," he said. "I checked mine and didn't have any winners." Thomas then printed a copy of the news story concerning the win and showed it to co-worker and pool member Bart Dawson.

"By now it was 3:00 in the afternoon, and we thought we should check with our pool captain (Susan Lea) to see if we had the winner," Dawson said. "I showed her the story and she hadn't heard anything about it." Lea handed out the tickets with the 30 sets of numbers the group had for the drawing and started reading the winning numbers. "She kept reading the numbers, and I kept saying 'yep'," Thomas said.

By this time it was the end of the day, so Lea called a meeting of the group the next morning to make the announcement. "She called a meeting of the group and labeled it as being mandatory and confidential," said pool member Jessie Goodloe. "Folks had no idea what was going on. Several were actually afraid we were about to be fired!" Once in the meeting and the announcement was made, Goodloe said the reaction was incredible. "Lot of dropped jaws, and a bunch of hooting and hollering," she laughed.

The group didn't come in until the Tuesday after the win because they had to take care of one order of business. "There were a couple of folks who contributed every week over the years to the pool who didn't make it in to this one," said Dawson. "One guy had a death in the family, another was traveling, that sort of thing. We all got together on Friday to vote whether or not to include them in the win since they'd been with us for so long, and the group overwhelmingly decided they should be part of this experience."

As for what they'll do with the money, Goodloe said several have already made plans. "I'm scheduling Lasik surgery, and one other pool member called yesterday and booked a trip to Disneyworld for her family," she laughed.

After taxes, each member will receive $23,793.11. The retailer, Straus #15 in the PNC Tower at 5th and Main in Louisville, will receive a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.

News story photo(Click to display full-size in gallery)

Press Release, Lottery Post Staff

Comments

Ronnie316

29 people playing 30 lines per draw. Nice work.

haymaker's avatarhaymaker

Congrats to these folks,

and God bless them for including the ones that did't get their pool payment in on time.

leaving the greedy lawyers out of it.

joshuacloak's avatarjoshuacloak

will they just dodged the "maybe" lawsuits and kept everone happy, good story.

besides with that many people, its just like everyone got a nice big bonus, they wont be quitin work , just very very Happy i would think

Ronnie316

The fact that they had to have a meeting and decide is a dead giveaway the pool has no rules agreement.

Ronnie316

Quote: Originally posted by joshuacloak on Feb 12, 2013

will they just dodged the "maybe" lawsuits and kept everone happy, good story.

besides with that many people, its just like everyone got a nice big bonus, they wont be quitin work , just very very Happy i would think

I Agree! Its enough to buy a Harley, or a pick-up truck.

helpmewin's avatarhelpmewin

Quote: Originally posted by Ronnie316 on Feb 12, 2013

The fact that they had to have a meeting and decide is a dead giveaway the pool has no rules agreement.

that what you like (NO RULES).Yes Nod

Ronnie316

Quote: Originally posted by helpmewin on Feb 12, 2013

that what you like (NO RULES).Yes Nod

I Agree! Ride em, cowboy..........

maringoman's avatarmaringoman

The Idaho 33 and now the Kentucky 29. It seems lottery pools are more popular than I thought.                                                                  $23,793.11 is good change considering all have jobs o_O

helpmewin's avatarhelpmewin

Quote: Originally posted by Ronnie316 on Feb 12, 2013

I Agree! Ride em, cowboy..........

Hat

helpmewin's avatarhelpmewin

Quote: Originally posted by Ronnie316 on Feb 12, 2013

I Agree! Its enough to buy a Harley, or a pick-up truck.

you will need a truck 4 when that junk Harley breaks down you can haul it home.Green laugh

Ronnie316

Quote: Originally posted by maringoman on Feb 12, 2013

The Idaho 33 and now the Kentucky 29. It seems lottery pools are more popular than I thought.                                                                  $23,793.11 is good change considering all have jobs o_O

I Agree! And it only took 5 years to win.

mamamary517's avatarmamamary517

Nice story for a change & a happy ending for all.  Best of luck  to them allTroll

Ronnie316

Quote: Originally posted by helpmewin on Feb 12, 2013

you will need a truck 4 when that junk Harley breaks down you can haul it home.Green laugh

                  Green laugh

whiteballz's avatarwhiteballz

Quote: Originally posted by joshuacloak on Feb 12, 2013

will they just dodged the "maybe" lawsuits and kept everone happy, good story.

besides with that many people, its just like everyone got a nice big bonus, they wont be quitin work , just very very Happy i would think

they figured they were going to give about $48,000 to the two people who missed the pool or give alot more than that to lawyers in a long drawn out lawsuit.

Subscribe to this news story