This week has seen the largest ever US lottery prize won. A ticket sold in California won the $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot in the draw held on Tuesday November 8.
There are three Powerball draws held every week but no one has won the jackpot since August 3. It’s not just a record US lottery win but also the first in a Tuesday Powerball draw, not that it was supposed to be that way.
The record breaking draw was supposed to be held on Monday. Ticket holders were eager to find out if they’d win the jackpot but then the draw was delayed. One of the states that participated in the draw hadn’t supplied their sales data. Until that was received, the Powerball draw just couldn’t take place.
There was a delay of around 10 hours before the draw finally took place. Finally, we had a jackpot winner with one ticket able to match 10-33-42-47-56 and the Powerball 10.
The lucky winner has yet to come forward to claim their prize. However, we do know that the winning ticket was sold at a gas station called Joe’s Service Center in Altadena in Los Angeles County.
The store is owned by Joseph Chahayed and he’ll receive $1 million for selling the winning ticket. He’s a grandfather of 10 but has no intention of retiring and will continue to open his store every day at 6am.
He has no idea who bought the winning Powerball ticket. His hope is that it was someone local. He plans on using his own winnings to help his children.
It’s the first time that a US lottery has had a jackpot of over $2 billion. It was due to be $1.90 billion but such was the demand for tickets, it grew even higher. The previous record was the $1.586 billion won in a Powerball draw held in 2016. Three tickets shared that prize and one of them was also sold in California.
Whoever has won the record jackpot now has a decision to make. Either receive their winnings as a one-off payment of $997.6 million or the full amount as an annuity in 30 payment over 29 years. Another piece of good news for the winner is that while there are federal taxes of 24%, there are no state taxes to be paid.
One decision is usually whether to go public or remain anonymous. That’s not going to be the case for this Powerball winner. Californian rules state the winner has to be named but it’s up to them if they then want to talk to the press about their great win.
