Twenty-nine coworkers in New York did what office culture is supposed to do at its best: a bunch of regular people pooling a few bucks, sharing a little hope, and giving themselves a reason to laugh together on a random Tuesday.

And this time, it actually paid off.

A group of 29 coworkers—28 New Yorkers and one Pennsylvanian—ran an office pool for the Powerball drawing on Dec. 17, 2025. Someone bought the ticket at a convenience store on Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont, the kind of place you stop at without thinking… until it turns into the most memorable errand of your year.

They didn’t hit the $1.27 billion jackpot, because that number is basically a myth designed to keep humans buying $2 dreams. But they matched the first five white balls—25, 33, 53, 62, and 66—missing only the red Powerball 17.

That’s the $1 million second-tier prize.

Which sounds like “new life unlocked” money. And honestly, for a lot of people, it still is—just in a quieter, more realistic way.

Because they’re splitting it 29 ways, and after taxes each person ends up with roughly $21,866 to $23,250. That’s not “buy a beach house” money. It’s “take a real breath” money. The kind that can clear a chunk of debt, rebuild an emergency fund, fix the car without panic, finally book a trip, help a parent out, or just stop living in that constant low-grade financial stress that so many people pretend they’re not carrying.

And that’s what makes the story genuinely good.

Not that anyone became a different person overnight—but that something unexpectedly nice happened to a whole group at once. Instead of one winner quietly disappearing into their new life, you’ve got 29 people who get to share the same ridiculous sentence for the rest of time:

“Remember that time we won the lottery at work?”

For a moment, they weren’t just coworkers. They were a crew. A bunch of people who took a tiny shot together and got a win big enough to matter.

No unicorn jackpot. No fireworks. Just a real, shared upgrade.

And sometimes that’s the best kind.