Mavis L. Wanczyk

Mavis L. Wanczyk, 53, of Chicopee, Massachusetts, held the only ticket matching 6-7-16-23-26 with Powerball 4 in the drawing of Wednesday 23 August 2017. The advertised jackpot was $758.7 million, at the time the largest prize ever won on a single ticket in US lottery history. She had bought five tickets at the Pride Station & Store at 27 Montgomery Street in Chicopee — three self-selected and two Quick Picks — and had chosen the winning numbers herself, telling reporters they were 'kind of basically random, like maybe with our birthdays, one from here, one from there', combined with her lucky number 4. She claimed the prize the following day, 24 August 2017, at Massachusetts State Lottery headquarters and took the cash option: $480,500,936 before tax, leaving a cheque of $336,350,655 after withholding. Wanczyk had worked at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield for 32 years and said she had already told her employer she would not be coming back. 'I had a pipe dream, and my pipe dream has finally come true,' she said. 'I just want to sit back and relax.'

As of a June 2025 AARP consumer-fraud report, Wanczyk had made no public appearances since 2017 and AARP wrote that she "has likely changed her name or gone deep underground"; the article noted that the most visible online traces of her name were impostor social-media accounts run by scammers offering followers a share of her winnings. AARP recorded that lottery and sweepstakes scams were the fifth most reported category to the US Federal Trade Commission in 2024, with almost 3,500 complaints and $29.2 million in reported losses.