Includes video report
By Todd Northrop
LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. — The Passaic, New Jersey, man who won the $338 million Powerball lottery says he felt "pure joy" at winning the huge jackpot, but has no idea yet what he will do with all the money.
Dominican immigrant Pedro Quezada appeared at New Jersey lottery headquarters Tuesday to officially claim the prize with his wife, Ines. Both came in jeans.
Quezada was asked questions in Spanish and English and answered all the questions in Spanish, with a translator standing next to him.
The winning ticket was a Quick Pick, purchased together with a Jersey Cash 5 ticket. Quezada said he plays the lottery 2-3 times per week, sometimes choosing his own numbers and other times getting Quick Picks.
The former bodega owner-operator, who came to the United States from the city of Jarabacoa 26 years ago, said his mind is not clear enough yet to figure out how he will use the money.
Asked if he could think of any uses, he said he could use a good car. Asked what kind of car he has now, he said, "My feet."
Last night Quezada was "hiding" from the press in an undisclosed location, but celebrated the win with his brothers and his mother. He stowed the winning ticket in a safety deposit box overnight.
Quezada said he did not know in what form he would take his winnings, although he said he already has secured the services of a a financial planner. A lump-sum payment would be worth $221 million, or about $152 million after taxes, the fourth-largest jackpot in Powerball history.
He showed up late Monday at the liquor store in Passaic where he purchased the ticket to see if he had the winner. The ticket was validated at 4:17 p.m., giving him less than 24 hours to weigh his future as a multimillionaire before appearing at the news conference.
When he realized he had won, he said, "I felt pure joy, just happiness."
Up until last year, Quezada had worked 15-hour days for years at a bodega in his new hometown of Passaic, in northern New Jersey. His son now runs the small grocery.
He said his bodega days are over, and given all the money he won, he doesn't plan to let his son keep working there, either.
When she got the call from him Monday, his wife said: "I had no words... my heart wanted to come out of my chest."
She added, "I'm very happy that God has blessed up with this prize."
The largest Powerball jackpot ever came in at $587.5 million in November. Nebraska still holds the record for the largest Powerball jackpot won on a single ticket — $365 million — by eight workers at a Lincoln meatpacking plant in February 2006.
Powerball is played in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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RAW VIDEO: Watch the press conference
Note: We apologize for the poor audio quality throughout much of the video. It seems the NJ Lottery camera person was covering the microphone for some of the press conference, and they did not use an external microphone.
You can find other lottery videos on Lottery Post's YouTube page.
At least he wont be driving "his feet" anymore.
Pure joy is a perfect description.
"Quezada said he did not know in what form he would take his winnings, although he said he already has secured the services of a financial planner."
Make sure his name is not Bernie Madoff.
Thrifty is happy for the winner, and so is me also ...........
N.J. man claims $338 million Powerball jackpot
2 members gave this topic an average rating of 5 out of 5
Congratulations once again Mr. Quezada, nice to read that he/family are in a undisclosed location
"He stowed the winning ticket in a safety deposit box overnight"
Good job!
I would try to be a bit more surreal.
Glad to hear he's been a hard workin' man for many years.
Good luck to him.
THRIFTY let's his stars do all the talking.
Thrifty's Positive Energy Flow System is still hard at work on bringing home a jackpot.
Getting himself a financial planner is a GOOD start. By the way l don't think God had anything to do with winning the jackpot. Common sense dictates that if that were so, sickness & death would be a thing of the past as well.
It was the : " QP's"...you gotta love them.
She thinks God had something to do with it, and she doesn't care what you think about it in CA.
It was a quickpick! I am glad because I play my numbers and sometimes quickpicks and sometimes both. There is no proven formula other than buying a ticket. Yet...
If gas prices keep going up ill be "Flinstoning" it too... Until I win the Lottery that is :)
Yessir!
I am so happy for the man. Oh so happy!!!!!!!!!
I do have a quick question for my friendly LP members. The other day, when we were reading the win in the news, my acquintance posed a question my way. He is from Italy originally but, he got posted to the states here. He is wondering whether, being now a resident of the States (10 years), he can play the Euromillions online. I don't think so, I told him but, I did tell him that will find out from the horses' mouths.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
On the front page of www.usamega.com which is a sister website of LotteryPost there is a link to play Euro Millions. I used it once to play Euro Millions but was discouraged when my bank statement showed that the payment was to a company in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is in Israel and Euro Millions is not played there so I can't trust it.
I would never play a lottery from a 3rd party site, just too risky.
Yeah that was a dumb thing to do.
Congrats Pedro Quezada & Inez Sanchez be Safe, have FUN & spend wisely.
thanks ronnie this is a BIG Deal
wonder if they are or ever have been members of the Lottery post
he Looks super Happy
He sure does.. I don't blame him..congratulations Pedero God Bless!
If l cannot see the lottery machine, l do not hand over my cash.Some folk buy a car online, l can never for the life of me understand that. I need to look that thing over, run my hands over her lines, pop the hood- not on a computer monitor, l need to test drive that puppy FIRST.
Seeing is believing.
I am a 2 liner most of the time. One self pick and one quickpick.
That's the first thing i would do if i won the Lottery is buy my car online i been building my car for a year @ BMW
i can't decide if i want Metallic or No Metallic.
anyways when i do get it i am having it Delivered right to my house i think it will be fine!
I wish him and his family a long and happy life. I too am a switch hitter!!
oh i see your talking about the Lottery
Same here! I go both ways.
Pedro is in the money, oh yeah! Now you can afford to spend some time learning ENGLISH!! 
I seem to remember some LP members using a 3rd party site to buy El Gordo raffle tickets back in December. I wonder how that turned out for them.
Crazy, I don't really have a interest in any other lotteries really. Don't really play often to care, I would like to play the Powerball if it was at a crazy jackpot again. That would be fun, I guess when it gets like that everyone has lottery fever.
He looks like a real sweet guy, I am sure he'll help as many as possible, hope he gets good financial advice.
I wish him well. I think he claimed it very quickly and hope he gets things in order.
Are those people behind him body guards?
So you would say it feels like time is melting?
Yeah sometimes I feel quick/easy picks are way off but I still play them and self picks. You can't predict the future.
My mother used to be able to predict the future...when I brought my report card home from school she would predict what my father would do when he got home!
Dali ?
at About the age of 12, I said to my sister, also an artist, " this guy draws dead clocks"
44 years later she still thinks it't funny.
Dead clocks...
I think so. I saw the same guy behind him in a couple pictures in different places.
Now that you look back, would you say that the spanking helped made sure that you learned what you you were supposed to have learned in school, got better upgraded results and avoided future un-welcomed, un-pleasant encounter with the cane, at the end of the next school term.
When warranted and needed I would receive discipline, as most kids would back in those days. These days kids are way too spoiled and tend to get away with whatever they want. It's different times now.
Can't wait until Powerball comes to California. It will be soon. April 8th is just around the corner. Maybe with the additional players, the jackpots will get this huge (or even bigger) more regularly. It's kind of exciting.
QP's rule the day.
The best system out there, just ask Pay-Dro.
Did they say how many quick picks he had bought for the drawing?? It would be amazing if it was just one!
if it was only one ticket that won Pedro Quezada the jackpot, I'm sure we would never hear the end of it from a certain Lottery Post member.
I updated the news story and inserted video of the press conference from yesterday. I would have done it yesterday, except YouTube was choking on the file, and the upload didn't work until this morning.
Unfortunately, the sound is extremely poor quality, because I think the camera person had their hand covering the microphone for some of the time. Also, the NJ Lottery did not externally mic the camera, so the sound picked up was whatever they could hear at the camera -- not at the podium. So crank your volume up and you'll hear most of it.
In either case, it's always fun to watch press conferences in full (not edited), at least in my opinion.
Nothing but a jibberish fest for almost 30 minutes....Learn the main language of the country you're in!
fast forward to 5 min and 17 seconds in to the video. That's what it would be like if you won a jackpot and had to face the media. I've never seen so many cameras in my life.
Count me out on that! I wouldn't have much of anything to say. But anyways I think I will go back to playing the state lottery....Would be nice if wisconsin passed something where a person could remain anonymous for the big national jackpot games though.
That kind of annoys me, the shop I sometimes go in to buy my quick picks for the Euromillions the clerks don't speak English and only know a few words and they all speak to each other in a different language in front of you. I find it rude, I try to avoid the shop most of the time.
I thought you buy your tickets online.
I do, but if I am out I just grab a few. One of the reasons I started to buy them online. Or if I won't be home in time before the draw closes. Plus I always have a feeling the store is luckier haha.
intersting, the flag in the background wwith the gold trim. That gold trim signifies the area is under US military rule. interesting. just like the stock exchange.