Daydreaming leads Smyrna couple to $50,000 Powerball payday

When a Smyrna man and his wife were driving to the store last week, like many people across the country, they started talking about how great it would be to win big in the Powerball drawing.

That daydreaming led to the Smyrna couple stopping to buy additional tickets at their favorite lottery location and eventually into a big payday. 

While Joseph Wilson Sr. didn't hit the $356 million jackpot, he did turn the extra lottery ticket purchase into a $50,000 gain for his family by correctly matching four of the five white-ball numbers, plus the Powerball, in the Aug. 12 drawing.

Wilson, a 56-year-old married man with two children and eight grandchildren, normally spends $10 on tickets when jackpots are high, with the hope of bettering the lives of his family and others. 

Now that he’s finally hit his first big win, he can start to put that money toward good use.

“I picked up my wife from work, and we headed to the store,” Wilson said in a Delaware Lottery press release. Wilson is originally from Maryland but has been living in Delaware for about 25 years. “While we were driving, my wife started daydreaming about winning big, so we stopped off to get more Lottery tickets since the jackpot was high.”

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According to the release, Wilson purchased four Powerball tickets from Dot Discount Store #2 on Glenwood Avenue in Smyrna, where he normally buys his tickets.

Wilson told lottery officials that he won $2 on the first ticket and nothing on the next two. But when he scanned the last ticket, it came up as a big winner. He scanned the winning ticket a couple more times, then had another customer look at it on the screen before finally having the clerk check it.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Wilson in the release. “I immediately went out to the car to get my wife so that we could scan the ticket together. We were both stunned.”

Wilson plans to put his winnings to good use.

The Concerned Citizens Organization is a charity based out of Smyrna that helps underprivileged kids. It’s one of the places Wilson plans to donate his money to. In addition, he wants to replace a heating pump that recently broke, take his grandkids shopping for school clothes and supplies and even get a puppy.

“I like playing the Lottery because for a couple dollars I get to dream for a couple days,” Wilson said.

The winning numbers from the Aug. 12 drawing were 20, 24, 26, 25 and 49. The Powerball number was 19, and the Power Play number was 2.

The married couple claimed the prize at lottery headquarters on Monday.

Reach Jerry Smith at jsmith17@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JerrySmithTNJ.