A Ticket That Nearly Blew Away: Indiana's $71.7 Million Powerball Winner Claims Her Share of the 'Night of Millionaires'

It is the kind of small, ordinary moment that turns into a story you tell for the rest of your life. A few days after the April 29 Powerball drawing, a La Porte, Indiana woman sat in her parked car in the driveway and reached into her purse for a stack of tickets she had been meaning to check. As she pulled them out, a draft caught one and sent it fluttering out the open window. She grabbed for the door - and in that split second, the numbers on a different ticket in her hand stopped her cold. They looked exactly like the winning ones. Suddenly the ticket that had blown away did not matter at all. 'I was numb,' she later told lottery officials. 'I was just speechless, in disbelief.'

That near-miss ticket was worth a fortune. In the Wednesday, April 29, 2026 Powerball draw - white balls 3, 19, 35, 51 and 67, with the red Powerball 15 - only two tickets in the country matched all six numbers. One was sold in Kansas; the other at Al's Supermarket on East Lincolnway in La Porte. The pair split a $143.4 million jackpot, leaving each winner with $71.7 million. The Indiana player kept her name private, claiming through an LLC, and when the Hoosier Lottery announced the claim on July 1 she chose the lump-sum cash option - a single payment of $32,603,357.68.

Her win was the headline act of an extraordinary night. Powerball and the Multi-State Lottery Association dubbed the April 29 drawing the 'Night of Millionaires,' because a single set of numbers produced 89 prizes worth at least $1 million across the country. The reason was oddly human: on many state play slips, the five winning white-ball numbers happened to line up in a neat vertical column, and players who fill in a straight line all landed the same combination. Nationwide, 62 tickets matched all five white balls in 17 states. Indiana alone produced 19 of the million-dollar-plus tickets - and this La Porte player was the one who also caught the red Powerball to take a share of the top prize.

For Indiana, the night rewrote the record books. The La Porte winner became the Hoosier Lottery's 40th Powerball jackpot winner, extending the state's national lead in Powerball jackpots - a streak that reaches back to 1992, when Indiana sold the game's very first jackpot ticket. As for the money, the winner says she plans to make some sensible investments, then enjoy the rest: she is a devoted Chicago Bears fan hoping to catch some games next season, with a dream trip to Alaska at the top of her list. Al's Supermarket, meanwhile, collects a $100,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.

You do not have to live in the United States to take a shot at a Powerball jackpot. A licensed lottery courier buys an official ticket on your behalf for the same draw and keeps it secure - you pick five main numbers and a Powerball, choose a drawing, and you are entered.