Single winning Powerball lottery ticket sold in Florida
Final jackpot total of $590.5 million is largest prize won by a single ticket
How would you react if you won?
- Updated 8:33 am with winning location and other details
- Updated May 20 at 3:47 pm with the jackpot's cash value
By Todd Northrop
The largest Powerball lottery jackpot in game history has been won Saturday night by a single ticket sold in the state of Florida.
The record $590.5 million Powerball jackpot, which is the second-largest of any lottery game in history, started as a $40 million prize on April 3, 2013, and continued accumulating prize money for 13 consecutive drawings, until it was finally won Saturday.
On Friday the game's organizer pegged the jackpot estimate at $600 million, but the actual total fell a bit short of that number. Still, it was enough to secure second place on the list of all-time highest lottery jackpots, and the top Powerball jackpot in history.
After all the proceeds were counted, the final lump-sum cash value of the jackpot stood at $370.9 million.
The Powerball winning numbers for Saturday, May 18, 2013, were 10, 13, 14, 22, and 52, with Powerball number 11.
The big winner undoubtedly will get very little sleep Saturday night, as they try to process winning the Powerball's largest lottery jackpot ever.
Is the winner running around the house screaming? Are they calling their family? Or maybe calling their boss to quit their job? What are they planning to do with all that loot?
What is the first thing you would do?
The winning ticket was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla., according to Florida Lottery executive Cindy O'Connell. Zephyrhills is a suburb of Tampa.
"This would be the sixth Florida Powerball winner and right now, it's the sole winner of the largest ever Powerball jackpot," O'Connell told AP. "We're delighted right now that we have the sole winner."
She said Florida has had more Powerball winners than any other state.
The winner was not immediately identified publicly and O'Connell did not give any indication just hours after Saturday's drawing whether anyone had already stepped forward with that winning ticket.
With four out of every five possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, lottery executives said earlier that someone was almost certain to win the game's highest jackpot, a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars — and that's after taxes.
Fortunately, even if you didn't win the jackpot, the Powerball game still offers another 8 ways to win lower-tier prizes.
In addition to the jackpot winner, a whopping 35 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers, but not the Powerball, for a $1,000,000 prize: 2 from Arizona, 2 from California, 1 from Connecticut, 2 from Florida, 2 from Georgia, 2 from Kentucky, 1 from Louisiana, 2 from Missouri, 2 from New Hampshire, 3 from New Jersey, 7 from New York, 2 from Pennsylvania, 1 from South Carolina, 1 from Tennessee, 1 from Texas, 1 from Virginia, 1 from Washington, and 2 from Wisconsin.
The 2 California second-prize winners will each be awarded $2,309,228, because California does not award fixed prizes. By law, California awards all prizes on a pari-mutuel basis, meaning the prizes will change each drawing based on the number of tickets sold and the number of tickets that won at each prize level.
Of all the second-prize winners, only two of the tickets — one of the tickets sold in New York and the South Carolina ticket — were purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1. Because they purchased the Power Play, those two tickets are now worth $2 million.
Power Play is not available in California, because the fixed nature of the prize increase offered in Power Play is not compatible with California's pari-mutuel payouts.
355 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Of those tickets, 30 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $40,000, and 41 of the tickets were sold in California, where the prize was worth $8,945 this drawing.
The jackpot for the Wednesday Powerball drawing is reset to $40 million.
Powerball is now played in 43 states, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.
A 44th Powerball state will be added some time in the next year, as the state of Wyoming has approved a new state lottery with the intention of joining Powerball and other multi-state lottery games. (See Wyoming officially becomes 44th state with a lottery, Lottery Post, Mar. 14, 2013.)
Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega (www.usamega.com). The USA Mega Web site provides lottery players in-depth information about the United States's two biggest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.
Truly astonishing! Congrats to the lucky winner or winners. They're rich forever!!
Wow! Only one? Congrats to whomever won. Enjoy!
Congrats to my fellow Floridian!!!
I would take the annuity. Judging from the payout table, it's good enough for me.
Year % Prize B4 Taxes
01 1.78% 10,528,674
02 1.85% 10,949,821
03 1.93% 11,387,814
04 2.01% 11,843,326
05 2.09% 12,317,059
06 2.17% 12,809,742
07 2.26% 13,322,132
08 2.35% 13,855,017
09 2.44% 14,409,217
10 2.54% 14,985,586
11 2.64% 15,585,010
12 2.74% 16,208,410
13 2.85% 16,856,746
14 2.97% 17,531,016
15 3.09% 18,232,257
16 3.21% 18,961,547
17 3.34% 19,720,009
18 3.47% 20,508,809
19 3.61% 21,329,162
20 3.76% 22,182,328
21 3.91% 23,069,621
22 4.06% 23,992,406
23 4.23% 24,952,102
24 4.39% 25,950,187
25 4.57% 26,988,194
26 4.75% 28,067,722
27 4.94% 29,190,431
28 5.14% 30,358,048
29 5.35% 31,572,370
30 5.56% 32,835,265
100.00% 590,500,029
Lucky. Mosty likely it's a old head ???? welp lucky them.
So close to a billion dollar jackpot...
Congrats to the winner(s).
PS - Congrats to the winner!
Probably sold at a Publix in central or south Florida...
congrats to the 35 2nd prize winners, and double shout out to the Ca. players on their $2+ mill wins
I broke even with $4 bucks I matched the PB yay iam going to layoff Big Game Jackpots & play state for a few weeks.
Birthday numbers - 1
Congrats to the Winners spend Wisely
BIG CONGRATS TO THE LUCKY TICKET HOLDER!
UPDATE: winning ticket was sold at Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills. The store is located 7838 Gall Blvd Zephyrhills, FL 33541-4302
Since it's a supermarket, I bet it's a self service machine.
what if it was richard he get his tickets there, oh man there be a lot of haters.
This is absolutely amazing! what a winfall for the winners! best of luck to them all!
Just one person took the jackpot that is truly amazing. That individual can walk around as the king or queen of American lottery!
Congratulations Florida winner!
It might be an office pool.
Yeah that's true. We will have to watch the news and see. Still though whoever bought it what a lucky draw.
http://goo.gl/maps/d26fK
goog maps
Lottery pool from mobile home retirement community across from the hospital down the street.... (guessing... lol)
i was looking at the trailer park too
Could be Canadian tourists
OMG!
I believe I read somewhere that Jack Whitaker moved to Zephyrhills, Florida. We know there is a trailer park so it could be him.
maybe
Who is Richard?
Also can I say FML lost again what else is new? LOL...........I had a chance to win in 3 states PA/NJ/NY bought in all 3 states since I live in PA, work in NY, and take a train to work from NJ. Been playing for years. (Oh well my time will come.) lol
Still SHOCKED that ONLY 1 person won. They should really claim through a trust.
WOW that would be INSANE if Jack Whitaker actually won AGAIN. Did he really move there?
Say what you want about him, but he did help people when he won. He gave money away to others not just spend on him self.
1 ticket, from a new comer State! Oh my!. Well, I can eat humble pie with gladness. I was extrememly wrong about just 1 ticket winning.
.
Congratulations to the winner/winners. Oh my, how are they feeling this very minute? Oh, the suspense! Florida, you have set the bar!
"They should really claim through a trust."
I don't know how claiming through a trust would benefit the Florida winner or winners in terms of protecting their identity.
"Can Lottery winners remain anonymous?
No. Florida Lottery winners cannot remain anonymous. Florida law mandates that the Florida Lottery provide the winner's name, city of residence, game won, date won and amount won to any third party who requests the information; however Florida Lottery winners' home addresses and telephone numbers are confidential."
source:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JwD43ItfyjsJ:www.flalottery.com/faq.do+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Congratulation to the winners/s Woo Hoo
I can't wait until the lottery offices are open on Monday and the winner(s) come forward. This should be interesting. I hope whomever wins could really use the money. Then again, who couldn't use $282,675,000 (the cash value in Florida after taxes)?
I could definitely put that money to good use.
This person should get a name change.
David Smith would be a good name change. The news papers would have, "David Smith wins Powerball." They would be almost impossible to find. A negative would be a name change would delay the claims process by a few months. I don't think I could wait that long.
Meanwhile, I'm glad I don't live in Cali, The 2 California second-prize winners will each be awarded $2,309,228 while last weeks second-prize winners won $256,317.
Winning $2.3 million without having to buy the powerplay is a great outcome but the winners from the other draw that got $256K got the short end.
Ugh everyone's forgetting if the person takes the cash payout , where is the 300 and something million, that was not paid to the winner???? Does it go back into the pot? Hmmm
$590.5 million is the annuity value. If the winner chose the annuity, the cash value is invested on behalf of the winner over a 30 year period and the sum of all the annual payments would equal $590.5 million before taxes.
If the winner takes the cash option, they get the money at its present day value.
that money never exist if you choose the cash option
I was just going to post that link. In the American games the advertised jackpot amount is the annuity value before taxes. Europeans and Canadians have the best lottery games. For their games, the advertised jackpot amount is the cash value after taxes.
I see. Sooo how come we as players cant see how much the lottery took in for the powerball? Or can we and trust me the money existed they prob took in over a billion in sells. That cash option was tiny compared to how much they took in now the jackpot is back to a little pot
No Florida has had Powerball for awhile. Just check the Powerball website to see FL has had previous PB winners. New to MM, but Gov. Chris Christie and VA won that. On a Sid note, I think I will just not read any news articles about lottery odds next time it gets big. I hate that I got psyched out of playing my lucky numbers! 10-13-14-22-52 and 11 were numbers I play regularly until I read a stupid article that listed one of those numbers. So I changed them up. Oh well, we shall never know who won since winners can claim without a press conference in FL.
It was me who won the JP. Yay. Anyone need any money?
Only serious people with financial woes. Thanks.