A woman who was the lucky winner of the $1.08 billion Powerball jackpot was spotted on Thursday morning at the downtown Los Angeles store, in California, where the ticket was sold.
The winning numbers were 7, 13, 10, 24, and 11 and the Powerball was 24.
“She came in here and she screamed … She hugged people in the store and then she ran away,” said KTLA 5 News reporter Eric Spillman. “She claims that she has the winning Powerball jackpot ticket.”
The Powerball lottery has not released the name of the winner, but they will do so as required.
The Powerball winner, who wore a black cap will choose between getting the full sum of $1.08 billion paid out in installments over 29 years, or receive a one-time payment of $558.1 million, both before taxes.
Powerball jackpot winners in California have one year to claim their prizes, and 60 days after their claim is validated to choose which payout they want.
The winning ticket was sold at Las Palmitas Mini Market in Wall Street, owned by Nabor Herrera.
Herrera who will receive a bonus of $1 million from the California lottery, said he did not know that he had sold the winning ticket until he came to open his business and Thursday morning, only to meet a crowd of reporters.
“It’s a surprise for me,” Nabor told KTLA. “I don’t know what it is, filming or what.”
“When we see the cameras, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on outside?’” said Angelica Menjivar, co-owner of the mini-mart. “So that’s when we realized it was true.”
The California Lottery said its sole mission was towards social responsibility geared towards raising money for public schools. For every Powerball ticket sold, 80 cents will go towards public education.
“Thanks to this jackpot that grew for 39 different draws, the California Lottery raised nearly $80 million for public schools just from the last three months,” said Carolyn Becker, a California Lottery spokesperson.
36 tickets sold across 16 states also matched all five white balls to win what in most states will be $1 million prizes. Seven of those tickets were sold in California, where the prizes will be $448,750, according to California’s lottery site. Non-jackpot prizes in California vary depending according to the number of winners and ticket sales, and so will differ from fixed prizes shown on Powerball’s site.
Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot winner is the second Los Angeles billionaire created by the Powerball lottery within the past year. It is also the sixth-largest US lottery jackpot and third-largest Powerball jackpot.
Edwin Castro purchased a record-breaking $ 2.04 billion ticket at a gas station convenience store in Altadena, last year’s November.
There had been 38 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner since Powerball’s April 19 drawing, when a ticket in Ohio matched all six numbers to win a grand prize worth $252.6 million.
The Mega Millions drawing is still on, with Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot worth an estimated annuitized value of $720 million, with a cash value of $369.6 million.
