Manuel Franco

Manuel Franco, a 24-year-old from West Allis, Wisconsin, bought $10 of individual Powerball quick picks at the Speedway station at 15555 W. Beloit Road in New Berlin on 27 March 2019, the day of the drawing. He later said he had 'pretty much felt lucky' when he bought them. His was the only ticket to match all six numbers for an advertised $768.4 million jackpot, at the time the second-largest in Powerball history and the third-largest for any US lottery and the largest ever won in Wisconsin, the state's 17th Powerball jackpot since 1988. Franco waited nearly four weeks before coming forward, claiming the prize at a Wisconsin Lottery news conference on 23 April 2019 where he said, 'It feels like a dream.' He took the cash option of about $477 million, just over $326 million after state and federal withholding. He told reporters he had had under $1,000 in his bank account before the win, that he had 'pretty much never showed up for work again', and that he wanted to travel, help pay family members' college tuition and give to charity. He also said he did not intend to keep buying lottery tickets.

An Associated Press feature published on 31 July 2022 reported that Franco "later reportedly went into hiding amid harassment by strangers and the news media". He has made no substantive public appearance since the April 2019 news conference, and his attorney, Andrew Stoltmann, cited privacy as the reason, saying of the impostor accounts trading on his name: "We have alerted the FBI. We have alerted various authorities to this." Reports of scammers impersonating him continued to reach the Better Business Bureau's Scam Tracker into 2024. As of September 2026 no death, lawsuit, bankruptcy or later interview is documented.