Powerball: A Californian Wins $2 Billion in the Lottery

An American can claim to be the luckiest in the world after winning a $2.04 billion Powerball prize pool.

The jackpot, worth approximately C$2.75 billion, was won thanks to a ticket purchased at Joe’s Service Garage in Altadena, near Los Angeles, California. The winning combination is 10-33-41-47-56 and Powerball 10.

Lottery California, which runs the state’s lottery draws, celebrated its first millionaire.

“California had only the first big Powerball winner, but the other three tickets had a five-figure combination minus the Powerball in Gardena, Beaumont and San Francisco.

However, the lucky winner will soon see his spot dissolve. He must first choose between taking the full jackpot of US$2.04 billion over 30 years or settling for an immediate sum of US$997.6 million. This amount is also reduced by 25% federal tax. On the other hand, the lucky winner is in California, a state that does not tax lottery winnings.

The Powerball prize pool has been steadily growing since August 3rd when it was last won.

To win the Powerball jackpot, you must get the correct combination from a sequence of five numbers from 1 to 69, followed by a Powerball drawn from numbers 1 to 26. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338. In other words, a person is 292 times more likely (1 in 1 million) to be struck by lightning than if he plays Powerball only once in his lifetime.

As the jackpot was won, the prize money was reduced to US$20 million. The next draw will be held on Wednesday.

With $2.75 billion, we can…:

• More than 300 million Big Macs to pay for
• Buy the 130,000 Toyota Corolla that was so popular in Quebec last year
• Buy around 35 Global 7500s, Bombardier’s most luxurious business jet
• Cover the entire budget of Quebec City ($1.65 billion in 2022) for 1 year and 8 months
• The blue tax extension ($6.4 billion) funds nearly half
• The gross domestic product of the state and archipelago of Tuvalu (US$63.1 million in 2021) is higher than that of Comoros (US$1.32 billion) or Guinea-Bissau (US$1.64 billion).