# Man Wins $340 Million Powerball After Using ‘Lucky’ Toilet Paper Roll Number: Says “I Just Had a Gut Feeling”
You know how your grandma always tells you to “play the numbers you see”? Well, a 47-year-old Florida man named Kevin “Kev” Thompson just proved that your grandma is either a time-traveling wizard or she’s been hoarding the same scratch-off tickets since 1982. Because last night, Kevin claimed the $340 million Powerball jackpot using a sequence he swiped straight off a half-empty Charmin Ultra Soft roll in his guest bathroom.
Yes, you read that right. The winning numbers—9, 17, 23, 42, 68, and Powerball 14—were allegedly copied from the serial number printed on the cardboard tube of a toilet paper roll that Kevin found in his guest bathroom, which he described as “the one nobody uses because the towel rack is broken and it smells like mothballs.”
“I was taking a dump, looking for some reading material, but all I had was a shampoo bottle and a soap dispenser that said ‘HAND WASH ONLY’ in passive-aggressive cursive,” Kevin told reporters during a press conference that somehow wasn’t immediately canceled for being too on-brand for 2024. “Then I looked down at the toilet paper roll and I was like, ‘Bro, those numbers look pretty lucky.’ So I snapped a pic, drove to a 7-Eleven on my lunch break, and boom—I’m basically a trust fund baby now, except I’m 47 and my back hurts.”
Naturally, the internet is doing what the internet does best: absolutely losing its collective mind. Twitter (or X, or whatever Elon is calling it this week) has already spawned at least 47 viral threads accusing Kevin of being a plant by Big Tissue, a shill for the lottery commission, or just a “lucky motherf***er who probably stepped in dog shit immediately after cashing the check.” The official AITA subreddit is currently split 50/50 between people who think Kevin is a legend and people who think he’s an asshole for not sharing the numbers with the toilet paper roll’s original owner—who, by the way, is his neighbor, Carol, a 72-year-old widow who buys her TP in bulk from Costco and is now reportedly “furious” that she didn’t check her own bathroom for winning lottery tickets.
“I’ve been using that same brand for 20 years,” Carol told local news while clutching a half-empty six-pack of Angel Soft like it was a holy relic. “That serial number was probably sitting right there under my nose while I was watching Judge Judy. And Kevin just waltzes in, takes a dump, and steals my lottery win? That’s not luck, that’s theft. I’m consulting a lawyer.”
Spoiler alert, Carol: it’s not theft. But that hasn’t stopped the memes. Within hours, the internet had already dubbed Kevin “The Toilet Paper Tycoon,” “The Loo-ttery Winner,” and, my personal favorite, “The Charmin Charmer.” TikTok is currently flooded with people filming themselves unrolling toilet paper in public bathrooms, desperately scanning for serial numbers, while at least three people have already been arrested for suspiciously loitering in the paper towel aisle at Walmart.
Let’s be real for a second: this is peak 2024 energy. We’ve had the “I won the lottery with a fortune cookie” guy, the “I won with a random receipt from McDonald’s” lady, and now we have the “I wiped my ass and became a millionaire” dude. Humanity has officially peaked. We can all go home now.
But before you start thinking this is just a heartwarming story about a guy who got rich while sitting on the porcelain throne, let’s talk about the fallout. Because, of course, there’s fallout.
Kevin’s ex-wife, Tammy, has already filed a motion claiming she’s entitled to half the winnings because they were “still technically married when the numbers were conceived”—a legal argument that is almost certainly going to be laughed out of court, but hey, it’s Florida. The same state that gave us the “Florida Man eats face” headline. So who knows? Maybe Tammy has a shot.
Meanwhile, Kevin’s current girlfriend, Jessica, is reportedly “furious” that he didn’t take her with him to buy the ticket. “He said he was going to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee and a pack of gum,” she told reporters through tears, holding a phone that showed a screenshot of a Venmo request for “emotional damages.” “I could have been the one to pick the numbers. I could have had the lucky vibe. But no. He had to have his ‘gut feeling.’”
And then there’s the 7-Eleven clerk, a guy named Raj, who sold Kevin the ticket. Raj is now being hailed as a “lucky charm” by locals, despite the fact that he literally just scanned a barcode and handed over a receipt. “People keep coming in and asking me to touch their tickets,” Raj said, looking exhausted. “I touch at least 200 scratch-offs a day. I have no special powers. I just work here.”
But the real winner here isn’t Kevin, or Raj, or even Carol with her case of Costco TP. It’s the Powerball marketing team, who are probably high-fiving each other right now while rolling around in a pile of cash that looks suspiciously like it was printed on toilet paper. Because you can bet your ass (pun intended) that next week’s sales are going to be through the roof. People are already posting pictures of their own toilet paper rolls, asking “Are these the numbers?” like they’ve discovered the Da Vinci Code in a bathroom stall.
In fact, the official Powerball Twitter account—which usually posts boring stuff like “Reminder: You have 180 days to claim your prize”—has already tweeted, “Pro tip: check your bathroom. You might be sitting on a winner.” Which is either
Final Thoughts
The perpetual churn of lottery results serves as a stark, daily reminder that while the dream of a windfall is a powerful opiate for the masses, the cold mathematics dictate a system designed for statistical failure. The few winners celebrated in the headlines are merely the exceptions that prove the rule, a distraction from the millions of losing tickets that quietly fund state coffers. Ultimately, the real lottery is played with our time and expectations, and the house—whether it’s a government or a corporation—always wins.