North Carolina Powerball Winner Who Missed $1.2B Jackpot by One Number Plans to Buy a Home with $2M Prize

Daryl Steinhoff, a 68-year-old resident of Clayton, North Carolina, said he will use his $2 million Powerball prize to buy a home after matching the five white balls but missing the red Powerball by one number in the Sept. 1 drawing.

Steinhoff told the North Carolina Education Lottery he played family numbers and added the $1 power play, which doubled a $1 million prize to $2 million. He claimed the prize at the lottery headquarters in Raleigh and received about $1.44 million after federal and state tax withholdings. "I was ecstatic and in disbelief," Steinhoff said. "The next day I got an email saying that I won something. I called my daughter and girlfriend."

The winning numbers for the drawing were 8, 23, 25, 40 and 53, with the red Powerball number 5. By matching the five white balls and opting for the power play, Steinhoff secured the second-highest prize available for that drawing. Lottery officials said he came forward publicly to claim the prize and completed the required validation and paperwork at state offices.

Steinhoff was one of several near-miss winners from the high-profile lottery sequence this summer. An anonymous player in Missoula, Montana, also matched five white balls and used the power play to claim a $2 million prize. Tickets matching five white balls without the power play produced $1 million winners in at least 15 other cases across multiple states, lottery announcements showed.

The Sept. 1 drawing came amid a months-long run that pushed Powerball’s jackpot to historic levels. The prize continued to climb until a drawing that produced two jackpot winners from Missouri and Texas, who split an advertised $1.79 billion prize. Those winners face the choice between an annuitized payout — the advertised $895 million paid over 29 years — or a one-time lump-sum payment of roughly $410.3 million, both amounts before taxes, lottery statements said.

State lottery officials and retailers across the country reported a spike in ticket sales and increased attention as the jackpot grew, leading to an unprecedented stretch of drawings without a jackpot winner. Lottery administrators said the run included 42 drawings between jackpot wins, the longest such streak in Powerball history.

Steinhoff’s decision to buy a home follows common practices among mid- and large-scale lottery winners, who often pay down debts and make major purchases. He said he used numbers with personal significance and learned of the win only after receiving an alert from the lottery the next morning. After tax withholdings, Steinhoff accepted the lump-sum payout available to prize claimants, Lottery officials confirmed.

Other recent winners who matched five white balls with the power play included ticket-holders in Kansas and Texas, lottery releases said. The wave of high-tier prizes distributed in the recent drawings underscored how a single historic jackpot run produced numerous multimillion-dollar winners in addition to the ultimate jackpot claimants.

Lottery officials urged winners to take standard precautions: sign the back of tickets, verify prizes through official state lottery channels and consult financial and legal advisors before making large public announcements or financial decisions. Steinhoff’s public claim and stated plans to purchase a home represent one of the first detailed accounts from a near-jackpot winner out of the recent series of drawings that captured national attention.