His Mother Spotted the Winning Store. He Told Her "It's Not Me."

The Maryland Lottery had put out word that a $1 million Powerball ticket was sold at a store in Odenton, and one Anne Arundel County mother knew exactly who to call. Her son played regularly. She sent him the news along with a photo of the retailer. He looked at it and counted himself straight out. "I told her, 'It's not me,'" the technician later recalled to lottery officials. The trouble was the camera angle: he always walks in from the left side of the building, and the photo had been taken from the right. He simply did not recognise the shop he visits all the time.

The ticket sat unchecked for a few days. When he finally scanned it, the terminal did not show a prize amount at all - it returned a "Go to Lottery" message, the sort of response that means a prize is too large to pay at the counter. He took it to a retailer to find out what he was actually holding. He had matched the first five numbers and missed only the red Powerball, landing the game's $1 million second-tier prize. "I was ecstatic. I am that person who won," he said.

According to the Maryland Lottery, the ticket was sold on 29 July at the Royal Farms at 1558 Annapolis Road in Odenton. The five white balls drawn that Wednesday night were 30, 36, 40, 42 and 57; the Powerball was 2, and the jackpot on the line was $663 million. Winners in Maryland have 182 days from the drawing date to come forward. The Royal Farms that sold the ticket collects a $2,500 bonus.

The winner, who is using the alias "Powerball Bulldog" after his university mascot, visited the Maryland Lottery in Baltimore on Monday, 10 August. By then the Powerball jackpot had run all the way to an estimated $905 million annuity with a $391.1 million cash option - a run that made his own $1 million look almost modest by comparison, though it will not feel that way. He told officials he plans to put some of it towards bills. His $1 million was, the Maryland Lottery noted, the largest Powerball prize the state produced during that jackpot roll.

Powerball tickets are sold across most US states, plus Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the United Kingdom - but you do not have to be in any of them to take part. A licensed lottery courier can buy an official ticket on your behalf and hold it securely: five main numbers plus one Powerball, exactly the same slip that turned a routine stop in Odenton into a seven-figure morning.