NJ restaurant workers think they won Powerball, then realize it was a mistake

Jan 14, 2016

About 40 of the workers at Grissini Ristorante get a lottery pool together whenever there is a large prize to be won, and when it came time for the record-breaking Powerball lottery, they thought their efforts had finally paid off.

According to NJ.com, staff members gathered around as a bartender read out the winning numbers, and when they realized that the numbers were the same as the ones they had, the celebrations began. One valet told a customer to get his own car, while another celebrated never having to wash dishes ever again.

But then, reality came crashing down: it turns out they hadn’t really won.

The mixup occurred when the winning numbers for the previous drawing had been read out instead of the ones for Wednesday’s drawing. A diner pulled waiter Claudio Campos and showed him his phone with the updated numbers, and that left Campos with the unenviable task of breaking the news to his friends.

“I looked at it again and I was speechless,” Campos told NJ.com Wednesday. “I had to give the bad news to the guys.”

At first, no one believed him, but then the celebrations died as reality sunk in.

Still, Campos said, this disappointment will not deter them from dreaming of that big win, and they still relish the experience.

“We all started hugging each other and jumping around,” he told NJ Advance Media. “We had that amazing feeling that nobody can explain. We felt it. We know how it is.”