Or not!
Security Hitch Delays Drawing of $1.9 Billion Powerball Jackpot
One participating lottery needed extra time to process its sales, Powerball said in explaining the delay in Monday night’s drawing.
The Powerball jackpot grew to $1.9 billion after the drawing Saturday night produced no top prize winner.Credit...Harm Venhuizen/Associated Press
By Amanda Holpuch and Johnny Diaz
Nov. 8, 2022, 6:33 a.m. ET
The appointed time came to see who might have won a record $1.9 billion Powerball jackpot, but as Monday night turned into Tuesday morning, the suspense continued as a processing delay prevented numbers from being drawn.
Powerball said in a statement that the drawing had been delayed because one of the 48 participating lotteries had not yet processed its sales and play data.
“Powerball has stringent security requirements to protect the integrity of the game,” the statement said. It said results of the drawing would not likely be known until Tuesday morning.
The winner would receive the largest payout in U.S. lottery history, eclipsing the $1.586 billion payout in 2016 split among three Powerball winners in California, Florida and Tennessee, which set a world record, officials said.
Monday night’s event, originally scheduled at 10:59 Eastern time, came after 40 straight drawings without a winner, tying a record set last year for the greatest number of consecutive drawings without a winner. That Powerball jackpot run ended on Oct. 4, 2021, with a $699.8 million winner in California after 41 drawings.
“Like the rest of America, and the world, I think we’re all eager to find out when this historic jackpot will eventually be won,” Drew Svitko, the chairman of the Powerball Product Group and executive director of the Pennsylvania Lottery, said in a statement.
The winner, if there is one, can have the prize paid in a lump sum, worth $929.1 million, or in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, worth $1.9 billion. The first thing winners should do, according to experts, is seek advice from a lawyer, a financial adviser and an accountant. And winners should research the professionals they turn to for help, checking the status of their licenses and getting references. ( Those resources are online.)
The Powerball prize is the second billion-dollar jackpot in recent months. This summer, a single Mega Millions ticket sold in Des Plaines, Ill., won $1.34 billion. Previous billion-dollar jackpots were won in 2016, 2018 and 2021.
For more than a week, the ever-rising Powerball jackpot has set off a frenzy of ticket-buying across the country by routine lottery players and even some skeptics, hopeful that the odds of winning, one in 292.2 million, will tilt in their favor.
On Monday morning at a Wawa convenience store in Manassas, Va., some 30 miles southwest of Washington, Seymour Jordan, 61, picked out Powerball numbers on a machine while a man waited patiently behind him.
Mr. Jordan said he and five co-workers at a security services company had pooled their money, each of them kicking in $12 for the latest draw. It is the fourth time that the group has teamed up to try to beat the long odds; they’ve won about $30 so far, he said.
Today, he said, he just purchased one set for himself, envisioning taking care of his church, his two adult children and 11 grandchildren. “It could change my life and my family’s life for the rest of our lives,” he said, contemplating a win. But, he added: “My wife is like, ‘I wish you would stop’.”
Some were hoping the long shot would fall their way. At a 7-Eleven convenience store in Gainesville, Va., a promotion offered a “fortune & cookie” for $3: one dollar for the cookie and $2 for a set of Powerball numbers. Customers like David Gudinas, 52, were occasional lottery players, but the outsize jackpot was too tempting to pass up.
Mr. Gudinas, who has a 17-year-old daughter headed to college next year, bought five tickets, though he admitted that the odds were stacked against him.
“I thought it was worth the $10 for the entertainment value,” said Mr. Gudinas, who said he was a federal employee. He said he would “save some, spend some” and probably tuck away a fund for college tuition if he won.
But he was not planning to stay up for the late-night drawing. “I will probably be asleep,” he said.
At a Chevron gas station in Miami on Thursday, Ruben Perez, 82, had a plan for what he would do with the jackpot.
He said he would “take my wife and go somewhere better” than Miami, where he has lived for 20 years. One possible destination, he said, would be his wife’s native Honduras.
Mr. Perez, a former police officer and a longtime Powerball player, said he usually spent about $50 a week on the tickets.
“I just hope somebody that needs it, gets it,” he added. “Even if it’s not me.”
Players can buy a $2 Powerball ticket in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The five states that do not participate are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.
In Franklin County and Oneida County, Idaho, which draw Powerball players from neighboring Utah, ticket sales were up 597 percent last week compared with “a more traditional week a month ago,” when the jackpot was around $354 million, David Workman, a spokesman for the Idaho Lottery, said in an email.
States oversee lottery operations and have different rules for how winnings are taxed and whether the names of the winners must be made public.
In Florida, anyone can request a winner’s name, city of residence and the amount they won. People who win $250,000 or more are exempt from this rule for 90 days from the day that they claim the prize.
In Miami, Janice Lusky Greenspan said that she played the lottery a few times each year, usually buying five or 10 tickets at a time, but the record Powerball jackpot inspired her to buy 15 tickets at a Publix supermarket on Thursday morning after she dropped her son off at his high school.
“First thing I do after I win?” she said. “Change my phone number.”
Christine Chung, , Derrick Bryson Taylor and Eduardo Medina contributed reporting. |
