A lucky winner

One lucky person who bought a Powerball lottery ticket in California is the winner of the record-breaking $2bn jackpot. The winning ticket was bought at a gas station in Altadena, California, about 14 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

go for a 29-year annuity or take a lump sum in cash

Whoever has the winning ticket has two options when it comes to receiving the prize. They are able to go for a 29-year annuity or take a lump sum in cash. If they go for the latter option, they will receive a cash payment of $997.6m. Tax needs to be paid on the winnings, which accounts for over a third of the total. California schools are also a big beneficiary of the mega jackpot, receiving $156m.

The service station’s owner, Joseph Chahayed, has already received a $1m check for selling the winning ticket. He said he plans to share the money with his family and hopes that the winner lives in the local community and will be able to invest some of the winnings in the town.

Delay to the draw

There was a lot of anticipation in recent weeks as the Powerball jackpot grew to unheard of heights. A delay to the draw on added to the overall suspense. A security issue saw the draw postponed for ten hours, moving to Tuesday instead of the regularly-scheduled Monday night.

processing delay as a result of a sales verification issue

The Minnesota Lottery revealed that it had a processing delay as a result of a sales verification issue, leading to the later Powerball draw time. Referring to the need to push the draw to Tuesday, the Multi-State Lottery Association stated: “protecting the integrity of the draw is of upmost importance, even if that means a further delay.”

Massive interest in the record jackpot

There was huge interest in the lottery – so many people bought tickets that 62% of the possible number combinations were covered for Tuesday’s draw. The jackpot started at $20m on August 6, increasing every time there was winner. Poker professional Shaun Deeb organized a large Powerball pool that purchased 50,000 tickets to try to win the $2bn jackpot. There had been rumors that the strategy led to the Powerball draw delay, though that obviously proved not to be the case.

The previous record Powerball jackpot was $1.6bn, which was shared in 2016 by three different winners in Tennessee, Florida, and California. According to the California Lottery, the odds of winning the $2bn jackpot were 1 in 292 million.