The “IMS Dreamers” Win $1 Million Playing Powerball

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia Lottery Director John Musgrave introduced a group of 12 co-workers from Innovative Mattress Solutions in Winfield that will split the $1 million Powerball match-5 prize from last Wednesday’s drawing at a press conference in Charleston today.

The $1 Million Powerball prize claim by the group that calls themselves the “IMS Dreamers” is the third of four $1 Million wins from Multi-State Lottery games in West Virginia in just 13 days.

“We are all hard working people that took a chance on a dream,” said Susan Bennett, one of the lucky winners. “No, it’s not the $400 million. No, we cannot retire. But we can pay off some debts, take a nice vacation this summer, and continue to dream!”

The lucky 12 purchased their ticket at the Little General on Elm Street in Winfield and Little General will receive a $10,000 sales bonus for this ticket.

Although this group is excited to split this large cash prize, they did not purchase the Power Play option for an extra $1 or they would be splitting a $2 Million prize. That is something that Bennett and her co-workers say they will rectify in future office pools.

The group bought 60 Powerball tickets for Wednesday’s draw and each of the 12 received a share of roughly $57,000 after tax withholdings.

The “IMS Dreamers” are Susan Bennett, Stacy Sockwell, Rhonda Neal, Misty Jenkins, Kristen Anderson, Kendra Preast, Jennifer Norton, Jason Swan, Danny Beckner, Cindy Jeffers, Brian Patterson and Andrew Bloomfield.
With this latest prize claim, there have now been 102 people win or share a prize of $1 million or more in West Virginia Lottery history. 

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 just recently sold in Wheeling for the drawing held on February 12.

“In all of 2013, the West Virginia Lottery was able to create five new millionaires. And 2014 appears to be a banner year, because today is February 21st and the West Virginia Lottery has already matched that total with our Monopoly Millionaire Second Chance Drawing in January and the four million-dollar Mega Millions and Powerball wins over the last two weeks,” Musgrave said.