Lottery winner shares good news and bad news with wife. ‘I didn’t get your Red Bull’

Asked by his wife to buy her a Red Bull on his way home from work, an Iowa man left a grocery store without the energy drink.

Instead, the man from North Liberty brought home a winning lottery ticket that he called “a blessing.”

Jamie Bryson said he went to a store after his shift at work to buy the Red Bull for his wife. But first, he checked his Powerball tickets on the store’s self-checker.

One of the tickets was a $50,000 winner, Iowa Lottery officials said.

“It said ’congratulations’ and I looked and saw the numbers popped up, and I thought, ‘This can’t be right,’” he told lottery officials. “I scanned it again and then I handed it to the cashier and had him triple-check it, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, man. You won 50 grand!’ I didn’t even buy the Red Bull, I just left and called my wife.”

He matched four of the five white balls — 17-19-21-37-45 — to win the $50,00 prize in the Sept. 21 drawing, officials said. The estimated jackpot that day was $197 million.

Odds of winning the $50,000 prize are 1 in 913,129.18.

“I called her and I was like, ‘You’re not going to believe this!’” he told his wife. “’I didn’t get you’re a Red Bull, but I just won 50 grand on the Powerball!’”

Bryson said he was in “disbelief” over the win. He and his wife plan to pay off debt with their winnings.

North Liberty is about a 20-mile drive south from Cedar Rapids.

This story was originally published September 26, 2024 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Lottery winner shares good news and bad news with wife. ‘I didn’t get your Red Bull’."