Powerball Lottery Winners: $254 Million Cash Payout To ‘Tennessee 20’ Workers Results In $12.7 Million Each [Video]

As seen in the below video from ABC News, the “Tennessee 20” is the nickname of 20 colleagues who work at a manufacturing plant called the North American Stamping Group in Portland, Tennessee. The group of Tennesseans pooled their monies together for years to play the lottery — and playing the Powerball finally paid off big time for the “Tennessee 20” when they won $420.9 million in Saturday’s Powerball drawing.

The Tennessee 20 does not yet show up on the official Powerball website under the stories of Powerball winners. However, the Powerball website does list the following information about the “Tennessee 20” winning ticket.

“There was one Powerball jackpot winner Saturday and 1,844,032 additional players won prizes totaling more than $17 Million. The estimated jackpot will be reset to $40 Million. Click here to see the winning numbers. Nov. 26: Jackpot reaches $420.9 Million; One Grand Prize winning ticket in TN!! The Saturday, November 26th jackpot reached an estimated $420.9 million and there was one grand prize winning ticket sold in the State of Tennessee. The jackpot will reset to its guaranteed $40 Million for the next draw. The winning numbers: White Balls: 17 19 21 37 44 Powerball: 16, Power Play 2. There were three tickets that won the $1 Million Match 5 prize. They were from MN and PA-2. There was one ticket that added the Power Play to win $2 million. It was from the State of NC. There were 1,844,032 tickets that won over $17.0 million in cash prizes. Detailed winning information can be found here.”

In thick Tennessee accents, the “Tennessee 20” spoke about what they would do in the wake of their big Powerball win.

As seen in the below video from NBC News, Amy O’Neal spoke about her son creating the nickname “Tennessee 20” — and about how he was the one who saw that the winning $420.9 million Powerball ticket was sold in Lafayette, Tennessee. O’Neal said that without even checking any numbers, her son automatically knew his mom had that winning Powerball ticket. As a result, he contacted Amy — and in turn, Amy began contacting members of the newly rich “Tennessee 20” — but none of the “Tennessee 20” members were answering their phones.

It was about 5:15 a.m. when Amy began to call the “Tennessee 20” members, so many of them were not yet awake or answering their phones. Amy simply left messages that repeated the fact that the “Tennessee 20” folks had won the Powerball, with the “Tennessee 20” group members eventually meeting at Amy’s house to celebrate their Powerball winnings and to discuss next steps.

Eventually, the “Tennessee 20” all learned they were now “Tennessee 20” millionaires.

Amy said that some of the “Tennessee 20” have been playing the Powerball lottery for as many as eight years, while others haven’t been members of the “Tennessee 20” lottery playing group as long because they are newer. Either way, new or old, they are a part of the “Tennessee 20” that showed up for the press junket that discussed how the Powerball winnings would or wouldn’t change their lives.

The above News Channel 5 video shows the group of 20, with some of those in Tennessee speaking about what a blessing it is to be a member of the “Tennessee 20” millionaires, and how it means they will be able to not only help themselves but others around them.

The Tennessee group spoke of helping those well beyond their “Tennessee 20” circle — such as donating to folks affected by the Tennessee wildfires, as reported by USA TODAY?.

Not all of the “Tennessee 20” will leave the North American Stamping Group right away.

Some of the “Tennessee 20” will stay on until their replacements can be trained for the company.

Because the “Tennessee 20” chose the cash option for the Powerball winning jackpot, the 20 Tennessee factory workers, according to Cleveland.com, will split $254 million, which is $12.7 million for each of the “Tennessee 20” members before taxes.

[Featured Image by Tony Dejak/AP Images]