Tammy Carvey from Wyandotte, Michigan, asked ChatGPT to pick her Powerball numbers — and walked away $100,000 richer.
A woman from Michigan ended up winning a huge lottery prize after turning to artificial intelligence for help — and against all odds, it paid off.
Even though no technology can actually predict lottery results, 45-year-old Tammy Carvey decided to have some fun and asked ChatGPT to generate a random set of Powerball numbers for her ticket.
At the time, the Powerball jackpot had grown to an unbelievable $1.787 billion, and Tammy figured she had nothing to lose by letting the AI take a shot at picking her numbers.
“I asked ChatGPT for a set of Powerball numbers and those are the numbers I played,” Carvey said in an interview with KARE 11 after claiming her winnings.
The numbers she played — 11, 23, 44, 61, 62, and Powerball 17 — ended up matching four white balls and the red Powerball, which earned her a $50,000 prize. But because she had selected the Power Play option, that amount instantly doubled to $100,000.
In the blink of an eye, her small gamble with an AI chatbot turned into a six-figure win that left her completely stunned.
Carvey admitted she isn’t a regular lottery player and only buys tickets when the prize gets unusually high. She described herself as more of an occasional player who likes to take a chance when the stakes feel exciting.
“I only play Powerball when the jackpot gets up there and the jackpot was over $1 billion, so I bought a ticket,” she explained.
When the winning numbers were announced, she didn’t realize right away how much she’d actually won. She had forgotten she’d chosen the Power Play feature that multiplies non-jackpot winnings — a detail that made a massive difference in her payout.
Discover more
Celebrity
Online movie streaming services
Netflix's
Online TV streaming services
Entertainment center
TV
Netflix
Television
“Google told me it was a $50,000 prize, so that’s what I thought I’d won,” she recalled. “It wasn’t until I logged into my Michigan Lottery account that I realized I added the Power Play to my ticket and actually won $100,000! My husband and I were in total disbelief.”
Once the shock wore off, Tammy said she plans to use her unexpected winnings wisely — first by paying off her mortgage and then saving what’s left for the future.
Tammy Carvey picked up a $100,000 jackpot thanks to ChatGPTMichigan Lottery
While the story sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, the Michigan Lottery made it clear that her win was purely a matter of chance, not technology.
“The results of all Lottery drawings are random and cannot be predicted by utilizing artificial intelligence or other number-generating tools,” officials said in a statement.
Interestingly, Tammy isn’t the only person to have tried this unusual approach. In another case, a woman from Virginia named Carrie Edwards also asked ChatGPT to generate her Powerball numbers — and she too won big, pocketing $50,000 that increased to $150,000 thanks to the Power Play multiplier.
While AI can’t truly predict random lottery results, it seems some players are having fun putting their faith in technology anyway. For a few lucky ones like Tammy and Carrie, that little experiment has turned out to be surprisingly profitable.
