LITTLE ROCK — A 25-year-old contract welder from Uniontown claimed a $1 million Powerball prize this morning at Arkansas Scholarship Lottery headquarters in what marked the largest single payout in the lottery's brief history.
Randall Irvin and fiancee Jacoba White arrived shortly after 10 a.m. and spent less than an hour filling out paperwork, meeting lottery officials and posing for photos before leaving.
Irvin said he plans to save most of the money but will spend some on building a new house.
He said he learned of the win Thursday at work during lunch.
"I'd gotten a phone call because somebody in Uniontown had won a million dollar ticket," Irvin said shortly before completing his paperwork. "I hadn't checked mine yet, so I checked it. And it happened to be me."
Irvin's ticket matched all five white balls but missed the Powerball in Wednesday's drawing. He also purchased the Powerplay, which multiplied the $200,000 prize five times. After taxes, he walks away with $680,000.
It was only the fifth drawing in which Irvin had played Powerball, he said. Each time, he spent $14 on seven $2 tickets with different sets of numbers. He said the winning set - 15, 32, 43, 44 and 46 - had no special significance.
The lottery in Arkansas started Sept. 28 and Powerball tickets went on sale about a month later. Irvin said the game's arrival in Uniontown encouraged him to start playing. Before, he could have purchased tickets in nearby Oklahoma.
"I didn't really believe in it much until it came to my town," he said. "It was there, so I did it."
The big win comes on the heels of a ticket sold in Mayflower that won the $25 million jackpot in the Jan. 2 drawing. That winner has still not come forward to claim the prize.
That ticket is the only Powerball jackpot winner in Arkansas so far.