In a statement, MacKenzie called the winnings a blessing, and recalled how a person in line at Publix allowed her to go ahead to buy her single Quick Pick ticket.
Mindy Crandell, 34, was in line at Publix with her two daughters that day, she said, when a woman stepped in front of her.
"I don't know that she was intentionally cutting," Crandell, who lives in Dade City, said in an interview Wednesday, "or maybe she didn't realize she did it."
Crandell let it go. She was worried about keeping her 5-year-old, Jeffa, entertained.
Later, when she heard about the winner she couldn't help but think it might have been the same woman. The she saw MacKenzie's picture.
"I said, 'You have got to be kidding me.' Of course they win the biggest lottery in U.S. history."
But she's not upset. Maybe that woman needed it more than she did, she thought.
According to lottery spokesman David Bishop, their chance encounter didn't cheat Crandell out of the fortune.
"Each lottery terminal has its own random number generator and there are a lot of factors," he said. "If there was even a millisecond difference in the time between key strokes at the terminal, it would have changed the numbers."