A single lucky ticket sold in California wins the Powerball jackpot of $699.8 million
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A lucky man or woman is over $700 million richer after purchasing a Powerball ticket in California and winning the jackpot, making them one of the largest lottery winners of all time.
After more than four months of the reward going unclaimed, the fatal ticket was sold to an unknown buyer at an Albertsons grocery shop in Morro Bay, a small, gorgeous coastal town near San Luis Obispo.
The jackpot surged to a startling $699.8 million in the days leading up to the critical purchase, making it the fifth-largest payout in Powerball history and the seventh-largest US lottery victory of all time.
The identity of the holder of the winning ticket will not be known to lottery authorities until a claim form is filed, according to the California Lottery.
The winner will have the option of receiving an annuity, which will be paid in instalments over the period of 29 years, or cash, in which case their prize will be cut by about 30%, to $496 million.
Taxes apply to both prize options.
The game’s grand prize had risen to astronomical proportions since June, as no participants were able to select a winning combination of numbers, implying that the total would continue to grow until a winner was found.
However, after 40 drawings with no winner, a single ticket sold at a small-town store along California’s Central Coastal region managed to match ALL six numbers, including the all-important Powerball, winning them approximately $700 million.
Morro Bay Albertsons will receive a maximum incentive of $1 million for selling the tragic ticket.
The winning numbers were 12, 22, 54, 66, and 69 on Monday night. The Powerball number was 15, which yielded the game’s top prize.
Since June 5, no one had earned the grand prize.
Powerball holds the world record for the highest reward ever awarded in US lottery history, as a jackpot reached the $1 billion mark for the first time in January 2016.
The announced jackpot was $1.586 billion.
The record-breaking prize pool was divided among three winning tickets from California, Florida, and Tennessee.
However, the largest Powerball winner in history was won just two years ago in Wisconsin by then-24-year-old Manuel Franco.
After playing regularly since he was 18, Manuel – one of the youngest Powerball winners of all-time – managed to secure a stunning $768.4 million on March 27 of that year, without having to split the gargantuan sum with anyone else.
The jackpot was the second-largest in Powerball history.
Powerball’s third-largest jackpot, a $758.7 million sum won by a then-53-year-old Mavis Wanczyk of Massachusetts in 2017, stood as the largest single win of a jackpot in history at the time, but has since been surpassed.
Mavis, on the other hand, chose to take the lump sum, reducing her earnings to a still respectable $480.5 million.
Monday’s winner in Morro Bay now earns the distinction of the winner of the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot since the game was conceived nearly 30 years ago, in 1992.
This win, the 41st drawing over the course of more than four months, set a record for the amount of draws before garnering of a grand prize, topping the previous mark of 36 drawings that eventually yielded a winner in January 2021.
As stated the longer the game goes without a grand prize winner, the larger the payout grows – a purposeful concept implemented by organizers, to draw in more players.
The odds of winning the game’s grand prize is an awe-inspiring 292.2 million to one.
However, a slew of people have win smaller prizes playing the particular lotto – including 2.8 million players in Saturday’s drawing alone.
Those winnings ranged from $1 million to $4.
Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
