Steve Peot Wins Wis. Powerball

By Shelley Walcott

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MADISON – Wisconsin has a new millionaire. A truck driver from Green Bay won the $29.1 million jackpot from the Sept. 5 Powerball drawing, Wisconsin Lottery officials say. Lottery spokesman Andrew Bohage said Steve Peot, 45, presented the winning ticket late Tuesday afternoon in Madison. Peot, who is married with two teenage children and another child on the way, chose the jackpot's cash option lump sum payment of $13.7 million, Bohage said. After taxes, he will receive about $9.35 million, the lottery spokesman said. The winner purchased the ticket bearing the numbers 11, 20, 21, 30 and 48, with a Powerball of 18 at the De Pere Superstore in De Pere, south of Green Bay. "This really is unbelievable," he told the lottery staff. "I don't play that often. Sometimes when the jackpots are really up there." When asked by lottery officials why he bought a $5 quick pick ticket in which a computer generated the numbers, he said: "I don't know. It was just a whim." Peot said he was not sure what he would do with the money. “Just going to keep it in the family, spread it around the family, make sure no one struggles, have a little fun,” Peot said. Bohage said Peot declined to take part in a news conference on the winning ticket. Calls to two telephone numbers that had been listed to a Steve Peot in the Green Bay area in recent years were not immediately returned. The De Pere Superstore will receive $100,000 for selling the winning ticket. Peot's Powerball jackpot is the 14th won in Wisconsin since the game started in 1992. It is the second won in Wisconsin during 2007 and third in last 13 months, Bohage said, adding that the largest was $208.6 million won by 100 Sargento Foods workers in Plymouth last year. Powerball is also played in Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and the Virgin Islands.