Florida Powerball Millionaires in $1.6 Billion Drawing

The winning numbers in the largest Powerball ever are 8-27-34-4-19-10. This allowed the prize money to reach a record $1.586 billion.

The odds of picking a winning combination were 1 in 292 million.

The winners of Wednesday’s unprecedented $1.6 billion jackpot bought their tickets in Florida, Tennessee and a Los Angeles suburb.

“In 2009, lotteries in 11 states brought in more revenue than the corporate income tax”, wrote Judd Legum and Bryce Covert for Think Progress. In the first year, the victor would be paid a little over $16 million.

Gels, who was 43 when he won, insists he didn’t retire on impulse, but only after carefully weighing his options and considering how he would collect his winnings – a strategy he advises potential winners of today’s billion-dollar-plus Powerball drawing to heed.

Last Saturday’s Powerball ticket sales alone produced roughly $5 million in higher education funding, officials said.

Justin Boggs is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Lottery officials said the 12 cities in California that sold tickets matching five of the six numbers were Nipton, Chula Vista, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Tustin, Pacoima, Vacaville, Cloverdale, Redlands, Gardena and Irwindale. The ticket was purchased at a 7-Eleven, whose owner will receive a $1 million bonus. The past 19 drawings had not yielded a victor.

But then again, you can’t win if you don’t play.

The winners can opt for annual payments over decades or a lump-sum payment.

So far, none of the winners’ identities have been revealed.

The huge draw also produced eight $2 million Power Play winners and 73 $1 million winners nationwide who matched all five white balls but missed the red Powerball, said Sally Lunsford of the Kansas Lottery.

A news release says Tennessee Lottery President Rebecca Hargrove is on her way to Munford, which is about 25 miles north of Memphis.

“Normally I might sell $50 to $75, if that”, she said.

The winners in Florida and Tennessee have not come forward, lottery officials in those states said, and officials have not said if anyone in California had claimed the prize.

Articles published this week titled Powerball’s .5 Billion Swindle Of Americans and Why the .5 billion Powerball is everything that’s wrong with America expose this American institution and call lotteries like Powerball a “regressive tax on the poor”.

Taking the 30-year payment plan will actually result in paying about 20 percent less tax on your Powerball winnings, according to Barro.