Andrew "Jack" Whittaker Jr.

Andrew Jackson 'Jack' Whittaker Jr., a 55-year-old West Virginia construction contractor, bought a Powerball quick pick on Christmas Eve 2002 at the a supermarket in Hurricane in Hurricane, West Virginia, where he stopped most mornings for a deli breakfast and fuel. The Christmas Day drawing left his as the only winning ticket for an advertised $314.9 million, at the time the largest jackpot won by a single ticket in US history. He took the cash option, about $170.5 million before tax and $113,386,407 after withholding. Whittaker was already wealthy; the Associated Press reported his construction business was worth roughly $17 million. He pledged a tenth of the prize to Christian charities, funded a foundation in his name that built churches and distributed food, clothing and scholarships in rural West Virginia, and gave the store's deli manager a $123,000 house, a Jeep and a $44,000 cheque. Losses followed. In August 2003 thieves took a briefcase holding $545,000 — $245,000 in cash and three $100,000 cashier's cheques — from a suitcase at a strip club in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, although the briefcase and its contents were later recovered intact from his vehicle outside a strip club; his home and cars were burgled repeatedly. His 17-year-old granddaughter Brandi Bragg was found dead in December 2004 with cocaine and methadone in her system, cause undetermined. His daughter Ginger died in 2009, aged 42. In December 2016 fire destroyed his uninsured Virginia home.

Whittaker died on 27 June 2020, aged 72, of natural causes; the Ronald Meadows Funeral Parlor in Hinton, West Virginia confirmed his death on 30 June 2020 and the family held a private funeral. He had told the Associated Press years earlier: "I'm only going to be remembered as the lunatic who won the lottery. I'm not proud of that."