Lottery winner left bosses stunned with decision over £111,000 jackpot

Scooping a lottery jackpot can transform a winner’s life overnight – opening the door to luxury getaways, dream homes and long-term financial security for their loved ones.

Yet for Carrie Edwards, her windfall meant something entirely different. The grandmother, from Virginia, US, matched four of the first five Powerball numbers along with a crucial sixth digit.

Her win would ordinarily have netted a prize of $50,000 (£37,000). However, when she purchased her ticket at a Virginia store, she paid an additional dollar – tripling her ultimate payout.

Rather than pocketing her £111,000 windfall last September, Carrie chose to donate every penny to charities supporting dementia research, food access and assistance for military families.

Carrie recalled receiving a message on her phone saying: “Please collect your lottery winnings…You won the Monday, September 8 draw for $50,000 and you had the 3x multiplier, so you won $150,000.” The Midlothian resident told reporters: “I knew I needed to give it all away. God is blessing me, so I can bless others.”

Carrie went on to describe her Powerball victory as a blessing that could “serve a greater purpose”, expressing her hope that others would feel inspired to hand their winnings over to worthy causes.

“We all are responsible for helping each other in this life,” she said.

She split her prize into three equal portions, with $50,000 apiece going to the Association Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD), Shalom Farms and the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. Carrie, who is a widow, said: “These three organisations represent healing, service and community.”

Representatives from all three organisations said they were not surprised by Carrie’s generosity because she had made donations to them in the past.

A lottery official said that winners only “very rarely” do what Carrie had done.

Carrie’s generosity is not entirely without precedent. In 2019, a woman from South Carolina who won a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) Mega Millions jackpot donated millions to the Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Alabama Red Cross for tornado relief.

And in 2013 Canadian Bob Erb, who bagged a $12 million prize (£8.9m), handed a $10,000 (£7.4k) tip to a restaurant-owner whose daughter was battling cancer.

The odds of winning a Powerball prize stand at one in 24.9 million, while the odds of claiming the jackpot are one in 292.2 million.

Meanwhile mega-winner Edwin Castro fell prey to the so-called “lottery curse.”

A man who alleged that Edwin had stolen his lucky ticket attempted to take legal action to claim a share of his winnings, two of his cousins were arrested in connection with a criminal luxury car scam, and the lavish $3.8 million Malibu mansion he purchased with his winnings was burnt to the ground in the deadly California wildfires.