Meet the First Powerball Winners

Have you seen these people? But, no really, have you? Photo: Today/NBC

The first of the official Powerball winners decided to come out to the world on the Today show Friday, so now everyone who did not win knows exactly what they (and their dog, who joined them and is technically also richer than you) look like. John and Lisa Robinson had one of the three lucky tickets for the $1.6 billion jackpot. They have decided to take the lump sum, which comes out to about $328 million before taxes. USA Today reports divulges that the couple gets a few million immediately and will have the rest of their riches by the end of the week. They live in Munford, Tennessee, and they have a long-lost cousin, if anybody asks.

But since you didn’t win the Powerball, take comfort in knowing that the story of John and Lisa Robinson, multimillionaires, has everything a good lotto story should. John described them as “common folk from a small town.” They bought four tickets at a local market on their way home before the drawing Wednesday night. John wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to stop. They both double- and triple-checked the numbers; John said he’d believe it only after hearing the state lotto officials announce where the tickets were bought.

The Robinsons said their first order of business is to pay off their daughter’s student loans, then the mortgage on their house and other bills. They have no plans to move and plan to keep on working. Lisa, who works in a dermatologist’s office, told her boss she’d be in on Monday.

Perhaps waiting to see how things work out for the Robinsons, the winners in California and Florida haven’t yet come forward. The 62-year-old registered nurse in California who thought she won after her boss gave her one of 180,000 tickets he purchased for all of his nursing-home employees and residents turned out to be a hoax. Her son pranked her. That boss who originally bought the ticket feels so bad he’s now sending her and her family on an all-expenses-paid vacation of their choosing, which, sure, isn’t a slice of the largest lotto jackpot ever, but it certainly beats the $4 you made back for getting the Powerball right. 

Tennessee Family That Won Powerball Tells World