Hot Springs Village sisters split $500,000 Arkansas Lottery Powerball prize

Little Rock, Ark. – Two sisters from Hot Springs Village are splitting a large payout after buying Powerball tickets.

Dennis Horta and Tammy Lee from Hot Springs Village are splitting the $500,000 Powerball lottery prize, Arkansas Scholarship Lottery officials said.

The sisters bought their winning ticket at the East Gate Food Mart in Hot Springs Village.

“We live together, so I told Tammy to pick me up a Powerball ticket because she was going to the store. She also bought a Natural State Jackpot ticket,” Horta said. “That night, I was getting ready for a shower and decided to check the tickets on the Arkansas Lottery app.”

The two matched four white balls and one Powerball number and multiplied their $50,000 prize by 10 to buy the Power Play.

“Dennis and I double-checked the ticket together,” Lee said. “We were still unsure as we had never seen a 10X multiplier before, so we called our sister and brother-in-law in California to confirm our win. Our brother-in-law is a lottery whiz.”

Horta said she would like to use her winnings to pay off her credit cards and make payments on her sister’s mortgage. Lee said she plans to pay the bills, save up and buy a handicapped-accessible van for her son.

The two said, “We always agreed that if either of us won the lottery, we would split the winnings 50/50.”

However, the ASL says that the real winners are the students of Arkansas. The Lottery has given away more than $1.2 billion since 2009 through more than 675,000 scholarships, all while bringing in more than $164 million in state and federal tax revenue.