$320M Powerball Hopeful John Cheeks Still Fighting for Website Error Jackpot

A Washington, D.C., man who claims he was denied a $320 million Powerball jackpot after his numbers came up on the lottery’s website is still fighting for compensation nearly four years later.

John Cheeks has filed a new federal lawsuit naming the District of Columbia and several lottery contractors after previous legal efforts failed.

His latest amended complaint seeks more than $100 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages and other relief.

Cheeks, a former independent candidate for D.C.’s non-voting seat in the U.S. House,  bought his Powerball ticket January 6, 2023.

Bizarre Mistake

All six numbers of Cheek’s numbers were listed as winners on the official D.C. Lottery website, where they remained for three days.

But they weren’t the numbers that came up in the actual January 7 Powerball draw.

Court records show the bizarre discrepancy resulted from a website testing error involving Taoti Enterprises, a Washington, D.C.-based digital agency contracted to design and maintain the D.C. Lottery website.

A quality-assurance team working for Taoti was testing a switch from Coordinated Universal Time to Eastern Standard Time when randomly generated Powerball test numbers were accidentally uploaded to the real lottery website instead of a non-public testing site.

The numbers just happened to match Cheeks’s ticket.

New Legal Strategy

Cheeks’s previous lawsuit, which accused the defendants of fraud and unjust enrichment, was dismissed in December 2025 because the court lacked jurisdiction. The new suit now alleges the defendants violated Cheeks’s constitutional rights in their handling of his claim.

Cheeks argues the dispute is about the process by which his claim was handled, including an alleged eight-month delay in reaching an administrative decision.

“This case concerns process, not outcome,” Cheeks states in the complaint.

He alleges procedural and substantive due process violations, equal protection violations, civil conspiracy, and other claims. He also argues that private contractors, including Taoti, were effectively acting with the D.C. government.

Taoti disputes those claims and is again seeking dismissal.

The company argues Cheeks has already had the underlying dispute decided in court and cannot bring new claims based on the same events. In a filing this month, Taoti said the current action is at least the fourth civil lawsuit Cheeks has brought over the January 2023 Powerball incident.

Cheeks Wants Records

Cheeks counters that important questions about the website error remain. He has sought discovery covering Taoti’s contract with the lottery, website change logs, publication timestamps, content-management permissions, and communications surrounding the erroneous numbers.

Cheeks argues those records could establish who generated, approved, posted, corrected, or removed the numbers and clarify the relationship between Taoti and D.C. lottery officials.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied Cheeks’s discovery request August 31. Taoti argues Cheeks cannot use discovery to find facts necessary to establish a viable claim.

The company is asking Friedrich to dismiss the claims against it with prejudice, which would prevent Cheeks from simply amending and pursuing them again in the same action.

The motion is awaiting the judge’s decision.