Overview

• On July 11, school bus driver Russell Ruff and his sons moved their bed to free their 16-year-old cat and found the long-lost lottery ticket.
• Ruff had purchased the Powerball ticket on June 13 and it matched four of five numbers plus the Powerball in the drawing the next night.
• By adding the Power Play option, his original $50,000 prize was tripled to $150,000.
• He confirmed the windfall by scanning the ticket multiple times with the Connecticut Lottery mobile app.
• Ruff described the sequence of events as “a miracle” and credited his cat’s curiosity for the life-changing discovery.