Ritchie County Woman Wins $1 Million Playing Powerball®

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia Lottery Director John Musgrave introduced Katie Ivers of Pullman as the latest person from West Virginia to claim a prize of $1 million from the Powerball® game.

Ivers is the sixth person from West Virginia to win a prize of $1 million or more by matching five numbers from the multi-state lottery games of Powerball and Mega Millions in just the last four months.

She purchased the lucky ticket at the Route 16 Fuel Center in Ellenboro, which is a store owned by DeFazio Oil, and she selected her own numbers.

“I play the lottery from time to time, but I usually auto pick my numbers, but this time was different,” Ivers said. “I have an atomic clock that has been malfunctioning and skipping dates and just acting up and about a month ago I decided to copy down the numbers on the display and those are the numbers I used Saturday.”

Ivers said she is considering may be taking a vacation with her daughter and grandson in the future and plans to take care of her family’s needs with her winnings.

There were no jackpot winners last Saturday, and Iver’s ticket was one of only two match 5 tickets sold in the entire country. The other was sold in California. The Powerball Jackpot is now $60 million for next Wednesday’s drawing.

With this latest prize claim, there have now been 104 people win or share a prize of $1 million or more in West Virginia Lottery history.

In all of 2013, the West Virginia Lottery was able to create five millionaires through its variety of games. Now, 2014 appears to be a banner year, because it is only March 31 and the West Virginia Lottery has already exceeded that total with seven (includes one second chance game $1 million winner).

The West Virginia Lottery is still awaiting prize claims on the Lottery’s outstanding Mega Millions million-dollar winner sold in Belle for the December 17, 2013 drawing, and the million-dollar Powerball winning ticket sold in Wheeling for the drawing held on February 12.