$340 million lottery winner was denied jackpot following brutal mistake

A man who thought he’d won a whopping $340 million on the lottery was denied the jackpot following a brutal mistake.

In January 2023, John Cheeks bought a Powerball ticket and used the birth dates of his family to pick out his numbers. So, it’s fair to say the Washington DC man knew exactly what the numbers he needed to show up were.

The numbers worth millions, in fact. But he was still amazed to see them show up on the website, leading to him believing he’d just become a multimillionaire.

And I don’t know about you, but my mind would instantly start spiralling into all the things I’d want to buy and do with the money.

So imagine how p**sed you’d be to then be told your lottery numbers didn’t actually match – that’s what happened to Cheeks.

The man thought he'd won millions. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The reason he’d checked the site in the first place was because he’d missed the broadcast of the live draw on TV.

“I got a little excited, but I didn’t shout, I didn’t scream. I just politely called a friend. I took a picture as he recommended, and that was it. I went to sleep,” he told NBC’s News4 Washington in an interview.

Cheeks went down to the Office of Lottery and Gaming (OLG) with his ticket were devastatingly, his claim was denied.

He told the BBC: “One of the claims agents told me my ticket was no good, just to throw it in the trash can.”

The OLG told him that his winning numbers came up on the site as ‘a test run’ and didn’t match the ones that were actually read out in the draw even though the numbers stayed up on the site for three days.

Cheeks decided to keep hold of the ticket, put it in a safety deposit box and found himself a lawyer, Richard Evans.

He says he was told to throw away his ticket (NBC)

“They have said that one of their contractors made a mistake,” Evans told News4. “I haven’t seen the evidence to support that yet.”

Cheeks went on to sue Powerball and DC Lottery on eight separate counts including breach of contract, fraud and infliction of emotional distress.

Evans said the man is entitled to the ‘entire jackpot’ and otherwise, to damages for the ‘gross negligence’ of posting the incorrect numbers.

His lawsuit was dismissed by the court in June this year, according to court documents, as it was determined that Cheeks had 'failed to establish that this Court maintains personal jurisdiction' over the defendant.

If he won the money, he planned to open a home trust bank to help aspiring home owners.

LADbible contacted Powerball and Taoti Enterprises (the lottery contractor) for comment.