Parkersburg Man Wins $2 Million Powerball Prize

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia Lottery Director John Musgrave introduced David Tefft of Parkersburg as the state’s latest winner of a $2 million Powerball® prize at a press conference in Charleston, Tuesday.

“We could not be more excited for Mr. Tefft,” Musgrave said. “Calendar year 2014 was a record setting year for West Virginia Lottery players with an incredible 13 tickets valued at $1 million or more sold in our state from the popular games of Powerball and Mega Millions, and we hope that good luck streak continues here in 2015.”

Tefft purchased his lucky ticket, which matched five numbers from the December 20th Powerball® drawing, at the Mini Giants 2 in Williamstown. He paid an extra $1 for the Powerplay option, thus his prize of $1 million was automatically increased to $2 million for matching the five numbers. Mini Giants 2 will receive a sales bonus of $10,000 for selling the ticket.

“I went online to check my numbers on Sunday morning and could not believe it. I actually had the numbers on my ticket in the order they were drawn and I only missed the Powerball number,” Tefft said. “I did not realize the prize structure had changed a few years ago so I thought I won just $250,000 and it was not until I called one of my sons later, and asked him to double check, that I found out I actually had won $2 million.”

Tefft, who plays the lottery regularly, said he considers playing the lottery an investment in West Virginia.

“This is not gambling,” Tefft said. “This goes to senior citizens, tourism and schools. The West Virginia Lottery does a lot of good in this state, a whole lot of good. So playing is not a gamble, it’s just an investment in the future of West Virginia.”

He also plans to use some of his winnings to pay off his home and build a log cabin on his property. The rest, he says, he will invest.

This most recent ticket is the 13th ticket from the Multi-State Lottery games of Powerball® and Mega Millions® to be sold in West Virginia during the 2014 calendar year worth $1 million or more. That figure is a record for the state that eclipses the previous high of five that was set in 2013. Eleven of those 13 wins have come from the Powerball® game.

While odds of winning do not change based on location, the probability of winning a prize of a million or more from these popular games was better in West Virginia than anywhere in the country in 2014. With a population of only 1.8 million, West Virginia produced one million-dollar plus winner from MUSL games per every 138,461 people in the state.

If you include the $1 million prize from West Virginia’s Monopoly “Live Like a Millionaire” second chance promotion that was awarded in January of 2014, the West Virginia Lottery produced 14 prizes of $1-million or more in 2014 (one per every 128,571 West Virginians).