2020-10-29 16:13:46.37

A Missouri Lottery player in Waynesville used the Power Play feature to triple his Powerball winnings from the Oct. 21 drawing. Leighton Gray Jr. purchased the ticket worth $150,000 at LMC Convenience Store, 1302 Historic 66 W. in Waynesville. 

Gray matched four white-ball numbers, as well as the Powerball number drawn – 1, 3, 13, 44, 56, and a Powerball of 26 – to win the base prize of $50,000.  Because he also chose Power Play for an extra $1, his prize was tripled when the Power Play number drawn that night was 3. 

Gray shared that he didn’t realize he’d won until the next day. 

“I checked my ticket on my phone on Thursday morning,” he said. “I checked it probably a dozen times, and then I went into town to have them checked at a store to make sure what I had I really did have.”   “It was more disbelief than anything else,” he added.

Gray said he’s won on Powerball before, but this is by far his biggest win ever. He plans to use the money to pay off bills and purchase a new truck.

 Powerball is a $2 per play multi-state Draw Game that features jackpots starting at $20 million, with drawings held on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 9:59 p.m. All current and past winning numbers can be found at MOLottery.com. 

Saturday’s Powerball jackpot is estimated at $127 million.

In FY20, players in Pulaski County, where the winning ticket was sold, won more than $9.4 million in Missouri Lottery prizes. During the same time period, retailers received more than $872,000 in commissions and bonuses, and more than $1.1 million in Lottery proceeds went to education programs in the county.