Sixty-three, HVAC, forty dollars a week at the Sunoco on Route 9 — twenty Wednesday, twenty Saturday, the same six numbers since 1994, three of them his wife's birthday. The clerk knew the order. He bought the ticket standing up at the counter, folded it once, and put it in the left breast pocket of his work shirt, where it stayed until the drawing.

The plan was specific and had not changed in years: his daughter's $61,000 in loans, the roof on his sister's place in Millville, a truck with a working heater, and the rest in something safe. He could say the whole thing in under a minute. On Saturday he matched one number and the Powerball, took the four dollars in cash, and bought two more.