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Restaurant workers mistakenly celebrate Powerball win after reading wrong numbers

Click to play video: 'Group mistakenly celebrated Powerball win after reading old numbers'
Group mistakenly celebrated Powerball win after reading old numbers
WATCH ABOVE: Group mistakenly celebrated Powerball win after reading old numbers. Tracee Carrasco reports – Jan 14, 2016

A group of workers at a New Jersey restaurant were left devastated after mistakenly reading the wrong numbers on their office pool Powerball ticket believing, for a brief moment, they had won the jackpot.

Employees at Grissini Restaurant in Englewood Cliffs began celebrating after thinking they had matched all five white numbers and the red Powerball number from Saturday night’s drawing. With no winners from the previous Wednesday draw the massive prize had reached US$950 million.

READ MORE: Win the U.S. Powerball lottery? Here’s some advice to help manage those millions

Video of the heartbreaking scene showed employees hugging and jumping for joy as the numbers were being read.

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But it was not to be.

“I got a text from a friend of mine and he sent me numbers which we thought were the winning numbers but they turned out to be Wednesday’s numbers,” Charles Poveromo, 55, who works as a bartender, told CBS news. “I thought [the other employees] would take it a lot harder than they did.”
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READ MORE: In record Powerball game, a look at winners and losers

The owner  of the restaurant Anthony DelGatto admitted that while he felt bad for his employees he was happy no one ended up quitting.

“I’m sure I would have lost all the employees,” DelGatto told CBS. “The dishwashers were very happy — they didn’t have to wash dishes anymore. Our valet parker told a guy to go get his own car.”

The restaurant has been having fun with the mix-up and employees  have made a number of media appearances. On the restaurant’s Facebook page they compared it to Steve Harvey crowning the wrong winner at the Miss Universe Pageant.

The Powerball eventually grew into an unprecedented US$1.6 billion and on Wednesday it was announced the massive windfall will be split three ways. The winning tickets were bought in Florida, Tennessee and a Los Angeles suburb.

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