New Ulm man wins $100,000 in Powerball

NEW ULM -- Leo Wallner of New Ulm won $100,000 in the Saturday ( Dec. 15) Powerball by matching the five winning numbers for Powerball, but not the Powerball number.

Wallner bought the ticket at a local convenience store last Thursday after he claimed the $10 he won from another Gopher 5 ticket. He originally planned for one Powerball ticket and one Gopher 5 ticket and take $8 in cash. But he decided instead to split his winnings evenly among both games, according to a news release from the Minnesota State Lottery.

Wallner discovered his good luck early Sunday morning when he checked his Powerball tickets with the winning numbers in the newspaper.

"Every Sunday I grab the paper, flip it open and check the numbers," he said. "It's a ritual."

What he saw seemed unreal. But after checking the state lottery's website, reality sunk in. Wallner woke his wife up after discovering his ticket was worth $100,000.

"I was floored," Janice Wallner said, explaining her reaction to the numbers on the lottery website. "I've never seen so many numbers that matched."

The winning numbers were 8-11-13-22-37. The Powerball was 17.

As for Wallner's Gopher 5 ticket for the Dec. 14 drawing, it was a non-winner.

The Minnesota State Lottery requires players to match all five numbers plus the Powerball in order to claim the total jackpot. It says the odds of winning a cash prize are one player in about 35 players. The odds of winning the jackpot are even higher -- one in 80 million.