Lisa took the ticket to her husband, who she woke up to check the numbers after the Powerball drawing Wednesday night.
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Lisa and John Robinson of Munford, Tenn., now must present the ticket to Tennessee lottery officials for verification in order to claim their one-third share of the largest lottery prize ever offered in North America.
“Actually I was on way home from work, and she had called me and said, ‘Are you going to stop and get a couple lottery tickets?”
They can let the jackpot be invested and thereby collect 30 annual payments totaling an estimated $533 million, or split $983.5 million in cash all at once.
“I hope not to move”, John said of his Munford address.
The Robinsons’ potential winning ticket has not yet been verified by Tennessee lottery officials, but news outlets have reported that one of the winners was sold at Naifeh’s in Munford. But a Powerball spokeswoman confirmed that the winning tickets must be claimed in the states in which they were purchased.
Rechnitz told the Daily media he bought the tickets to boost morale at his facilities.
Appearing on NBC News on Friday morning, they said they had no plans to splurge on a chateau “because you gotta clean them”.
The couple said they had not had time to think about how they would spend the money, though they plan to pay off their daughter’s student loans.
“I’m a firm believer in tithing to my church”, Robinson said in an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show.
John works at a maintenance distribution center and Lisa for a dermatologist.
Before going public with their apparent winning ticket, the Robinsons said they had only told their son, daughter, two brothers and mother-in-law about what happened.
Robinson said he stopped at Naifeh’s Wednesday night, went home, handed the ticket to his wife and went to lay down because he wasn’t feeling well. His wife stayed up to watch the drawing, carefully writing down the numbers.
For those (still) playing at home, the winning numbers were 08, 27, 34, 04, 19 and Powerball 10.
“I was running down the hallway screaming and crying”, Lisa Robinson said. “Now we’re real grateful we got the big piece of the pie”.
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Townsend, a “Today” show fan, advised the Robinsons to reach out to the show first rather than go to lottery officials so that they can “have control” of their story.
