Powerball winner finds $50,000 ticket thought to have been thrown away

Mark Perdue is several thousand dollars richer, thanks to a Powerball lottery ticket he bought back in October that he thought his wife had accidentally thrown away.

Perdue, the president of Kiriu USA, was recently checking the condition of the company car in anticipation of a visitor needing the vehicle. He opened the door and sat in the front seat.

“I look down and saw it [the ticket],” Perdue tells the Kentucky Lottery website. “I picked it up and I saw October 30th and I said, ‘That’s my ticket!’”

Perdue said the company vehicles are rarely driven and suspects the ticket may have fallen out of his pocket the last time he used it.

Perdue and his wife showed up at the lottery headquarters with the winning ticket the following day and walked away with a check for their winnings — after taxes, $36,000.