‘Are you messing with me?’ Wife doesn’t believe husband’s Powerball win in Missouri

A husband in Missouri bought a Powerball lottery ticket while at a QuikTrip convenience store — and his wife couldn’t believe how much he won.

“She just looked at me like, ‘Are you messing with me?’” the man recently recalled to lottery officials while claiming his prize.

He had handpicked his numbers for the Feb. 4 Powerball drawing, and several of those numbers were a match, according to a Feb. 21 news release from the Missouri Lottery.

“The numbers are actually a combo of (special) days,” he said, per the release. “And the final number was 42, which is a nerdy reference.”

The number 42 is a nod to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which proclaims the number is “the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.”

“Though the 42 didn’t match, the winning ticket did match four out of the five white-ball numbers drawn, as well as the Powerball number, to win a base prize of $50,000,” officials said in the release. “Since he included the Power Play option on his ticket, it was doubled to a $100,000 prize when the Power Play number drawn was 2.”

The man said this win could not have happened at a better time.

“It came at the right time,” he told lottery officials. “We’ve had a rough couple of months, so this just helps balance some of that out.”

This story was originally published February 21, 2023 at 2:58 PM with the headline "‘Are you messing with me?’ Wife doesn’t believe husband’s Powerball win in Missouri."