Warehouse worker takes third of $1.6 billion Powerball pot

A Munford, Tennessee, couple said Friday they hold one of three winning tickets of the massive $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot.

The Robinsons appeared Friday morning on the “Today” show along with their daughter, Tiffany, their lawyer, Joe Townsend, and his daughter, Ilene.

The couple said they bought four tickets at Naifeh’s Food Mart – where one of the winning tickets was sold – in their hometown of Munford, which has a population of just under 6,000 people.

But John Robinson and his wife, Lisa, said they won’t stop working and won’t make any wild purchases.

Robinson’s daughter said she wants a horse because her dad always said that if they won the lottery, she’d get one.

His wife said they had not had any time to think about what they would do with their share of the jackpot prize, but that she planned to return to work on Monday. Her wife stayed up to watch the lottery drawing at night and learned that they won the jackpot after carefully checking the numbers for several times. “We didn’t get any sleep”.

Hundreds gather outside the 7-Eleven, after it was announced the winning Powerball ticket was sold at the store, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016 in Chino Hills, Calif. One winning ticket was sold at the store located in suburban Los Angeles said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for California lottery.

Two Powerball tickets sold in North Carolina are worth $2 million, three are worth $100,000 and 14 are worth $50,000, lottery officials say. All three states with winners have laws requiring their names to be released publicly, according to the Powerball website.

The jackpot from Wednesday night’s drawing will be split by winners in Tennessee (Robinson family), California and Florida. “I got to the store, and there was already a completed play slip at the playstation”. Winners must present their tickets to lottery officials for verification.

John, who works at a maintenance distribution center, has kept the ticket on him since Lisa woke him up at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday to say the numbers on one of their tickets were a match for the winning numbers.

State lottery officials also urged people to proceed with caution when reading online reports about a purported victor.

Two winners have stepped forward, claiming they bought tickets that matched all five numbers and the Powerball number. While on air, Lisa Robinson called a co-worker to say she wouldn’t be coming to work that morning.