A New Jersey Powerball player who says they dreamt their lottery numbers before discarding the original play slip has become one of 18 second-tier millionaires from the 29 April 2026 draw, after replaying the same combination six months later and winning $1m.
The draw, which carried a $143.4m jackpot, set a state record for New Jersey with 18 second-tier winners – tickets that matched all five white balls but not the Powerball – according to a New Jersey Lottery press release issued on 13 May 2026.
Of those 18 winning tickets sold in New Jersey, 14 were worth $1m, while four included the Power Play option and each paid out $2m. In total, the Garden State produced more than a fifth of the 89 second-tier winners recorded nationwide that night.
The jackpot itself was not won in New Jersey. The $143.4m top prize was shared by winning tickets sold in Kansas and Indiana, including one purchased at Al’s Supermarket in La Porte, Indiana.
‘The numbers were crystal clear’
Among the 18 New Jersey winners, lottery officials highlighted one particularly detailed account of how a player chose their numbers.
“I had this vivid dream where I was winning the lottery, and the numbers were crystal clear,” the unnamed winner said in a New Jersey Lottery “winner stories” release dated 1 June 2026.
The player explained that they bought a ticket the next morning using the dreamt numbers but failed to win. After the loss, they tossed the play slip onto a dresser and forgot about it.
Six months later, while moving items around, the original slip fell out. “Something just told me to try those numbers one more time,” the winner said. This time, the replay of the same numbers produced a $1m second-tier win in the 29 April draw.
Lottery officials say stories like this have become some of the most memorable elements of that particular Powerball night, standing out against the backdrop of routine number combinations and anonymous wins.
Why so many second-tier winners?
Within lottery circles, the surge of second-tier wins in New Jersey from a single draw was notable but not viewed as mysterious.
Officials said that many players had unknowingly converged on similar number patterns by choosing a single vertical column on their play slips – a common human habit that can cause large groups of tickets to share the same combination.
That kind of selection trend helps explain how one set of numbers can generate an unusually high number of matching tickets when it happens to come up in the draw.
The winning numbers on 29 April 2026 were 03, 19, 35, 51, 67, with Powerball 15 and a 2x multiplier, as detailed in local radio station WDHA’s recap of the draw.
Millions still unclaimed
As of 1 June 2026, 15 of the 18 second-tier New Jersey winning tickets from the 29 April draw had been claimed, leaving three $1m prizes still outstanding.
James A. Carey, Executive Director of the New Jersey Lottery, said officials were eager to meet the remaining winners. “We can’t wait to meet our final three millionaires and hear their stories,” he said.
Under New Jersey Lottery rules, players have one year from the date of the draw to come forward. For the remaining three second-tier winners, that deadline falls on 29 April 2027.
The combination of a state-record haul of second-tier prizes and the dream-inspired $1m win has made the 29 April 2026 Powerball draw one of the most talked-about nights in recent New Jersey lottery history, underscoring how chance, habit and even a forgotten piece of paper can all play a part in life-changing outcomes.
