Powerball · United States · 12 April 2006
Hayes put money into a workplace Powerball pool at the Missouri Department of Social Services office in Florissant for the first time. The group's ticket was bought at a QuikTrip convenience store in St. Louis.
Advertised prize
$224,200,000
Cash value $102,800,000
Ticket
Syndicate or office pool
Outcome
Mixed
Some of it worked, some of it did not.
Sandra Hayes was a 46-year-old child-support caseworker for the Missouri Department of Social Services in Florissant when she joined an office lottery pool for the first time. The group's ticket, sold at a QuikTrip in St. Louis, matched all five numbers and the Powerball in the draw of 12 April 2006 for $224.2 million, then the largest prize in the Missouri Lottery's 20-year history and the seventh-largest Powerball jackpot awarded. Thirteen state employees shared it. The advertised cash option was $102.8 million before tax. Hayes has said her own lump sum came to more than $6 million after taxes. She was earning under $26,000 a year and raising three children alone. She stayed in her state job about another month, cleared roughly $100,000 of student loans and a $70,000 mortgage, and put the remainder into savings. In 2011 she published a memoir, How Winning the Lottery Changed My Life: Windfall: a Blessing or a Curse?, on the pressure that followed. She told the Associated Press she had to endure the greed and need of people trying to get her to release money, saying of relatives and friends: "These are people who you've loved deep down, and they're turning into vampires trying to suck the life out of me."
As of January 2016 Hayes, by then retired, told ABC News she had cleared her debts and banked the rest, and that she still buys the occasional ticket: "Do I still play it? Yes, I'm going to take my chances and see if lightning will strike twice." In 2012 she said she was working on a second book (2016).
One detail worth keeping
Four of the 13 Missouri winners, billed as "the Lucky 13", appeared on a reality television special, Million Dollar Christmas, that aired in December 2007.
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Theodorus Struyck
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Edwin Castro
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Manuel Franco
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$768,400,000
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Cheng 'Charlie' Saephan
Ended in tragedyPowerball · United States · 2024
$1,326,000,000
Laiza Chao joked to the Saephans before the draw that they were already "billionaires"; her $100 stake in a 20-ticket batch made it true.
Theodorus Struyck
Stayed privatePowerball · United States · 2023
$1,765,000,000
He bought the second-largest winning ticket in Powerball history about 500 yards from his own front door, at a cabin he had paid $90,000 for in 2010.
Saltines Holdings, LLC (Miami, Florida)
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The biggest Mega Millions winner in history is a company: Saltines Holdings, LLC of Miami. The Publix that sold the $2 Quick Pick collected a $100,000 retailer bonus.
Edwin Castro
Went wellPowerball · United States · 2022
$2,040,000,000
The draw ran a day late: Minnesota's sales-verification system held up all 48 lotteries, so the $2.04bn numbers were drawn at 8:57 a.m. ET on 8 November 2022.
Every figure and quotation above comes from these.
Last verified: 2026-09-13