John Robinson says he bought the ticket and three others Wednesday night while on the way home.
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NBC said the ticket had not yet been officially verified, but the couple said they planned to take it to lottery officials immediately after the show.
“I told her that I wasn’t feeling good and that I needed some Advil to get her to come over”, John Robinson said.
The pair, along with their daughter, Tiffany, appeared on the Today show on Friday, January 15, to reveal to the world that they got all the right numbers in Wednesday’s historic drawing. “We just wanted a small piece of the pie”. Both plan to return to work Monday, they said.
“I am a little overwhelmed and excited”, Lisa Robinson said during the afternoon press conference.
The prize for one of the winning tickets is roughly $533 million if the Robinsons choose the lump-sum payment, which is $327.8 million after taxes.
Talking about their future plans after suddenly becoming super rich, Robinson said earlier on the NBC’s “Today” show that his family would help certain friends, give money to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, and donate to their church.
“I said, ‘well, I’ll believe it when the news comes on in the morning and they say there’s a victor been in Munford, ‘ ” he said.
It appears that the holders of the two other winning tickets are yet to be identified.
Rechnitz bought 18,000 tickets for his employees and residents of the dozens of nursing homes he owns in the state.
There were also winners in the quiet Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills and at a supermarket in affluent Melbourne Beach, on Florida’s Space Coast.
“We were up all night”, she told the broadcast network.
On Wednesday night state lottery officials announced Naifeh’s sold Tennessee’s jackpot winning ticket, netting the grocery store a $25,000 prize as part of the designation.
“We knew in our heart it was the right number, but to hear them actually come out and say yes is overwhelming”, Lisa said. The Today show averages about 5 million viewers a day.
After learning of the Robinsons’ claim, Cole told the AP on Friday that they are not the kind of family to squander their money. “I said, ‘You have to check these numbers!’ He was asleep and was like, ‘Whaaa?'”
Tennessee Lottery has not verified the ticket, which John Robinson had been keeping in the front pocket of his shirt.
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Those who know the couple say the Robinsons live “about a mile” from Naifeh’s Food Mart where the winning Powerball ticket was sold.
