[OldManMac]

Too bad it wasn't Tom DeLay; he could have used the money for his lawyers!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/po...yt&emc=rss

October 20, 2005
Big Win for a Senator: $853,492 From Powerball

By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - While driving to the Capitol for a vote on Monday, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire stopped at a service station to buy gasoline. Just for fun, he bought $20 worth of Powerball Lottery tickets.

This morning, he checked the newspaper and saw that he had a ticket that matched the first five winning numbers, though not the Powerball number. "Wow," he recalled thinking. "I must have won about a hundred bucks."

More, actually. Today, Mr. Gregg banked a check for $853,492.

"Every American believes in good fortune and good luck, and I'm no different than anyone else," he said at a news conference. He said he does not play the lottery often, but was intrigued by the jackpot of some $340 million.

A Powerball ticket winning the jackpot was sold in the Jacksonville, Ore., area but had not been claimed at last report. Mr. Gregg was one of 47 players who matched five numbers for a substantial consolation prize.

Mr. Gregg, a Republican who heads the Senate Budget Committee, has $1.5 million to $6.2 million in stocks, real estate and other investments, according to his latest financial disclosure form. He is one of at least 40 senators who enjoy millionaire status.

The senator said he and his wife, Kathleen, would talk about what to do with the money, once he has paid the taxes on it. Some of it may go to the Hugh Gregg Foundation, which supports New Hampshire charities and is named after the senator's late father, a former governor of the state.

Mr. Gregg said he was grateful to the service station clerk who ran after him as he was leaving because he had left one of his tickets behind. "She was a very pleasant young woman," he said. "She might have kept it, and for all I know it might have been the winning ticket."

[rickey939]

Damn government.

[NHMacuser]

Maybe he will give it to the education system in his state. Cause I know we sure as hell could use it.

[Albert Pujols]

Yeah right, NH is rally rally smert.

[Cubeoid]

853 thousand dollars or 853 dollars.. I are confused.

[wallinbl]

The more interesting part is that one person won the $340 million jackpot. Usually, when they get big, so many tickets are sold that it is split among several people. One person just went from wage slave to ridiculously rich. I'm not saying that winning $20 million in the lottery is no big deal, but $340 million is a whole new league.

[nredman]

i hear he is going to give some of it away...should give it all away

[wdlove]

He is still a citizen and has the right to earn the winnings. Very smart on his part to donate the money to charity.