He returned a bottle of orange juice and won a jackpot of over US$300m

Hackensack, New Jersey

THE bottle of orange juice cost US$5 at ShopRite, but Tayeb Souami's wife had found the same brand on sale for US$2.50 elsewhere. Yes, it was only 250 pennies, but every one of them mattered to a family that had just refinanced its home and had a daughter headed to college. So on May 19, Mr Souami dutifully trudged back to the store in Hackensack, New Jersey - orange juice and receipt in hand.

But at the customer service counter, he saw a sign for the Powerball jackpot, which had ballooned to US$306 million at that point, according to Mr Souami's news conference posted by CBS New York. He liked the number and was feeling lucky, so he purchased two tickets using the money he got from the returned orange juice.

The next morning, Mr Souami, 55, had some work to do in the yard, but he also wanted to get his car washed. On the way to the carwash, he stepped into a 7-Eleven convenience store to check the tickets.

"I scanned the first ticket. It wasn't a winner. And the second ticket it was good, but always I see $2, $4, but that day I see, 'Must be seen by the retailer.' I scan it again and it said the same thing. And I say to the lady, 'Can you check? I think your machine is not working'."

Mr Souami said the clerk scanned the ticket and said, "Oh, my God!"

"My heart, it was just beating beating, beating," he told reporters. "And she kept saying, 'Oh, my God. Oh, my God.' It's like when you see a Tom and Jerry cartoon: The heart goes boom boom boom boom."

Mr Souami, a father of two who immigrated from an undisclosed country in Africa in 1996, had purchased the sole winning ticket. The winning numbers were 3, 6, 9, 17, 56 and the Powerball 25, according to NewJersey.com. His odds of winning were one in 292.2 million.

After learning he was a winner, he spent the next three weeks planning the rest of his life.

Mr Souami, who until very recently was an accountant for a food importing company, said he wanted to make sure the 200 people he works with would be okay before he quit.

The father of two decided to take the US$183 million cash payout and remain in his New Jersey hometown. He'll pay off his recently refinanced home, pay for his daughter's college tuition and pay off his own college loans. And perhaps he'll toast with his new favourite drink. "I love orange juice now," he said. WP