An Urbandale man has been playing the same set of numbers hoping to win the Powerball jackpot for the last two decades. 
 
 
 
 Lottery officials said Robert Winburn's strategy paid off during Saturday's drawing. 
 
 He won a $1 million prize in the $330.8 million jackpot by matching five of the winning numbers. 
 
 Winburn, 49, said he assigned numbers to the letters of the alphabet and used the corresponding numbers in his last name as his Powerball numbers. Up until this point, the strategy had netted only a $100 prize for Winburn. 
 
 
 
 No one matched all six Powerball numbers on Saturday, which pushed Wednesday's jackpot to an estimated $400 million prize or $227.8 million cash option. 
 
 
 
 Winburn said he learned he won by using a self-check station at an Urbandale Git-N-Go store. 
 
 "I put the first three (tickets) in and no win," Winburn told lottery employees Tuesday. "Then (the winning) one came up. I just kind of glanced at it. I did tell the guy next to me, 'I don't believe this,'"And he leaned over and I did it again and he says, 'Sign it and get the heck out of here.'" 
 
 The odds of winning the $1 million prize is 1 in 5,153,632.65. ||||| Mark Boster / Getty Images ID: 7772766 
 
 A California nurse with seven children was apparently pranked by her son into thinking she won Wednesday’s record Powerball jackpot — a feel-good story that spread rapidly online Thursday but had lottery officials skeptical. 
 
 The 62-year-old nurse was even identified by her employer, Park Avenue Health & Wellness Center in Pomona, California, who also may have fallen for the prank. 
 
 Shlomo Rechnitz, right, purchased Powerball tickets for all of his 15,000 employees for Wednesday night’s historic drawing. David Livingston / Getty Images ID: 7772707 
 
 The story spread quickly in local news broadcasts and social media, but it began to quickly unravel after details surrounding the ticket emerged. 
 
 
 
 One of the woman’s daughters told the New York Daily News that the ticket, and the picture, had in fact been part of a prank from one of her siblings. 
 
 
 
 California Lottery officials told BuzzFeed News they were skeptical about the win for a couple of reasons, including the fact that no one had come forward to claim the prize. 
 
 
 
 “No one from that group has come forward,” Alex Traverso, assistant deputy director of the California Lottery, told BuzzFeed News. 
 
 He said a picture of the supposed winning ticket also appeared to have been purchased at the wrong retailer. 
 
 “We checked out the ticket, and the retailers don’t check out,” he said. 
 
 Meet the Calif. nurse who won the big $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot and didn't quit her job https://t.co/EIho5hj0ZC — New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) ID: 7772724 
 
 A spokesperson for Shlomo Rechnitz, who owns the health facility where the nurse is employed, told BuzzFeed News that he had bought Powerball tickets for each of his 15,000 employees in 80 health care facilities. 
 
 “I asked him what spurred him to commit this act of generosity,” Josh Nass, a spokesman for Rechnitz said. “He said people are looking for hope, and he was hoping to bring hope into his employees.” 
 
 Nass declined to identity the woman, but said she was a mother of seven. 
 
 
 
 She and her colleagues began to celebrate at the nursing home Wednesday night after the numbers were announced, Nass said, believing she was a big winner. 
 
 He told BuzzFeed News he and her employer had been unable to contact the woman after news spread she might have been the victim of a prank. 
 
 “If it is indeed the case that someone pulled a prank on her, that’s reprehensible,” Nass said. 
 
 At this point, Nass said it was unclear what happened. 
 
 “She’s a wonderful lady, and an incredible employee,” Nass said. “She stayed to finish her shift.” 
 
 
 
 The real winning ticket was purchased at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, California. A picture of the woman’s ticket, however, showed it came from a different store, Traverso said. 
 
 Two other jackpot winning tickets were purchased in Florida and Tennessee. None of the winners have been identified. 
 
 Traverso said it is also rare for winners to make any sort of public announcement before claiming the winnings with the California Lottery. 
 
 “They usually play it really close to the vest,” he told BuzzFeed News. “They don’t want people to know they’re big winners. My assumption is that it’s not a legitimate ticket.”
– An Iowa man who only won $100 in 19 years of playing the same Powerball numbers has become a millionaire in his 20th year of sticking with them. Rob Winburn won $1 million of Saturday's jackpot by matching five of the numbers, which correspond to numbers he assigned to the letters in his last name, KCCI reports. He had the first five numbers of 2-9-14-21-23, but missed the Powerball number: 3. His odds of winning that $1 million prize were 1 in 5,153,633. When the winning ticket registered as such at a self-check machine the next day, "I did tell the guy next to me, 'I don't believe this,'" Winburn says. "And he leaned over and I did it again and he says, 'Sign it and get the heck out of here.'" He tells WOI-DT that he plans to pay off some bills, buy a new car, and invest the remainder. Nobody won the $330 million jackpot so tonight's jackpot is expected to be around $400 million, and it will top $500 million on Saturday if it rolls over again, the Los Angeles Times notes. (Click to read about another wild lottery win.)