Before becoming a winner of a mesmerizing $315.00.000 Powerball windfall, Tayeb Souami couldn’t even afford a bottle of orange juice worth $5. He put it back and decided to buy a lottery ticket instead. Souami can now drink all the juice he wants without looking at the price tag, because that ticket transformed him into New Jersey’s latest multi-millionaire.
The $315.00.000 winner correctly guessed the winning number 3, 6, 9, 17 and 56 with the Power Ball 25 in the Powerball draw on May 19th. He purchased the golden ticket at a local ShopRite in his home town of Hackensack while looking for orange juice. Since it cost $5, Souami left the store without his favourite drink – his wife found it on sale somewhere else and the couple was trying to save every penny. New Jersey man bought a Powerball ticket instead and had to ask the store clerk for help after checking his numbers, because he thought the machine wasn’t working.
“My heart, it was just beating beating, beating. And she kept saying, ‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God.’ It’s like when you see a ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoon: The heart goes boom boom boom boom,” said Souami.
Fortunate father of two, who is originally from Africa, moved to the US in 1996 and started buying lottery tickets about a year later. He’s an occasional player, who likes to place a bet when the jackpot reaches a high amount. His son have been urging him to stop wasting money away, because he never thought something like this would happen, but Souami proved him wrong. The $315.00.000 winner will talk to his financial advisor before making any rash decision, but family comes first. He’ll use the money to take care of his children and send them to college of their choosing.
