VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Vasilis Simmons, of Virginia Beach, opened his wallet, only to find a Powerball lottery ticket he'd forgotten he bought.
And it's a good thing he did.
Turns out, the ticket was a winner...a $150,000 winner!
Virginia Lottery officials said Simmons matched four of the winning numbers plus the Powerball number for the drawing on April 8.
Normally, that's a $50,000 prize.
But he spent an extra dollar for the PowerPlay, tripling the prize to $150,000.
Simmons, a private music teacher, bought the ticket at the 7-Eleven at 425 Kings Grant Road in Virginia Beach, officials said.
"The winning numbers were 11-22-24-51-60, and the Powerball number was 18. The odds of matching all six numbers to win the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million," lottery officials said in a press release. "The overall odds of winning any Powerball prize are 1 in 25."
Simmons said he had no immediate plans to spend the money, except for paying off some bills.
All profits from the Virginia Lottery go to K-12 schools in the state.
"Virginia Beach received more than $37.3 million in Lottery funds for K-12 education last fiscal year," the release said. "In Fiscal Year 2022, the Lottery raised more than $779 million for K-12 education, making up approximately 10 percent of Virginia’s total K-12 school budget."
