VA Woman Wins $50K Powerball Prize Thanks to Fortune Cookie

Everybody loves fortune cookies but few take the fortunes they get too seriously. A woman from Virginia, however, did just that and turned a small piece of paper into a $50,000 payday.

Tierra Barley, a local, cracked open a tasty fortune cookie treat only to find several lucky numbers printed on the piece of paper inside. The woman decided to test her luck and purchased a Powerball ticket at the Varina Superstore Supermarket on Darbytown Road in Henrico. While the ticket didn’t turn Barley into the next Powerball millionaire, it certainly helped her return home richer.

For context, the winning number for the May 8 drawing stood at 7, 41, 43, 44 and 51, with a Powerball of 5. Thanks to the fortune cookie, Barley matched four white balls and the red Powerball, winning her a $50,000 prize. For context, the chance of matching four white balls and the Powerball is approximately one in a million.

While the Virginia woman was quite lucky to win this prize, she almost missed out on the $50,000 prize as she mistakenly left the ticket slip at the store before going on a walk to the park with her daughter.

Fortunately, when Barley returned to the store, she was able to reclaim her ticket thanks to the help of another player who was purchasing tickets at the time.  

Another Virginia Player Won a Big Powerball Prize

While Lady Luck smiled at Barley, the woman wasn’t the only fortunate player. A Burke man by the name of Nicholas Perez just won $1 million, also playing Powerball. While he narrowly missed the jackpot by failing to correctly guess the Powerball number, Perez succeeded in matching all white numbers during the April 1 drawing.

For context, the numbers at the time of the drawing were 19, 24, 40, 42, 56; and the Powerball number was 23. According to the Virginia Lottery, the man used Easy Pick and allowed the computer to randomly select the numbers on his ticket.

Perez was not the only one to capitalize on this win as the Safeway shop at 8646 Richmond Highway in Alexandria also received a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.

Speaking of lucky players, a woman in North Carolina recently won a $700,000 jackpot “by accident.” The woman in question was playing what she thought to be a game demo when she suddenly won a life-changing prize.