Smithfield man wins $100,000 prize from Powerball ticket
PAWTUCKET – Joe Tavares, co-owner of Tavares News, said last week that if he won the Powerball jackpot, he’d “put a big sign out there that says ‘Gone Fishin’.” While he did not win the lottery and may not get to hang that particular sign, he will likely soon be hanging a new placard denoting that his newsstand sold a $100,000 winning Powerball ticket.
John Diggle of Greenville claimed the $100,000 winning Powerball Power-Play ticket sold at the High Street newsstand, according to the Rhode Island Lottery. Diggle has worked for National Grid for 40 years and will save the money won for his retirement, the lottery said. Diggle has been playing the same numbers, which represent his parents’ birthdays, the lottery said.
On Thursday afternoon, Tavares News co-owner Frank Tavares said that selling a $100,000 winning ticket would be a boon to their business.
“It’s a great help to us,” Tavares said. “The banner
should help. People will know we get big jackpots here. I’m sure it’s going to help us that the customers feel they’ll get a big jackpot.”
“People like to know we’ve had big winners,” he added.
In the past, Tavares News has sold four $10,000 winning lottery tickets, a $27,000 winner in Keno, and several $5,000 winning tickets. However, Diggle’s $100,000 jackpot is far and away “our biggest jackpot ever,” Tavares said.
Although Rhode Island did not have a jackpot winner, 89,984 winning tickets were sold in Rhode Island, totaling just over $2.76 million in prizes, the lottery said. Two $1 million winning Powerball tickets were sold in the Ocean State: one at Colbea Enterprises in Cranston and the other at Conimicut Liquors in Warwick.
The $1.5 billion jackpot was hit Wednesday night, with three winning tickets sold in California, Florida, and Tennessee.