I get nervous if I haven’t checked my lottery tickets just a few days after the draw, but judging by the number of late claims it seems we’re quicker to buy tickets than we are to check the results!

Jack Whittaker’s life changed when he turned a $1 Powerball ticket into $314.9 million.

There was a tense moment where he thought he was 1 ball away from the jackpot, as the wrong results had been broadcast.

If you’ve seen this guy around Facebook recently, you may have been inclined to think “lucky blighter, he’s now rich for life”.

Here he is holding his winning Powerball ticket for Wednesday 28th November:-

And yes, that’s the draw with the $587.5 Million jackpot.

It may have some of the worst odds of winning the jackpot amongst any lottery game, but that doesn’t stop the ticket frenzy when the jackpot gets really big.

Ron Yurcus of Glen Ellyn, Illinois is a retired chaplain who rarely buys lottery tickets. Just the odd one now and again.

So it’s easy to forget that you bought a ticket and maybe need to check the results to see if it won..?

Unless you happen to live in one of those countries that does strange things with the date… in which case last month was 10-11-12 and today is just plain boring old 11-10-12 🙂

So do you feel lucky?

A key part of playing the lottery is dreaming and scheming about how you will spend the jackpot when your lucky day arrives.

It’s no big surprise that we’re all quite similar in what we would do if we won – clear debts, quit job, buy big house, travel etc.

It’s standard in the USA for jackpot payments to be offered as yearly payments over 25 years, or a lump sum if you prefer. Of course, the lump sum option is significantly smaller than the headline jackpot amount.

A syndicate of 17 tax drivers have just been involved in a near miss lottery win.

The group had been looking forward to a bit of luck as cabbie takings have been hit pretty by the economy – with people preferring to look for cheaper methods of travel.

Ramon Rodriguez, 54, may need to clear his car out more often.

For 2 long months a crumpled up and forgotten lottery ticket sat in his centre console, until last week when he finally rediscovered it.