Powerball Jackpot Won in Frazier Park, California What Would You Do With $1.765 Billion?

In California, lottery winnings are covered under public disclosure laws. However, the things the public gets to know are limited to the name of the winner, the place where the ticket was bought, the date the jackpot was won, and what payout type the winner chose for their winnings.

Winning this amount of money means that you’re probably going to get targeted by crooks, right? Well, thanks to the laws in California, it’s going to be really hard to find the people who won.

Where Was it Won?

Frazier Park is a sleepy little town in California, numbering almost 2600 residents as of the 2020 census. That makes it one of the smallest townships in California, meaning that if the buyer is from there, the townsfolk will know soon enough.

The ticket was bought at Midway Market and Liquor, a small general store in the center of the town. Most of the town’s residents are retirees, and the owner hopes that one of them will win the prize jackpot.

What Does This Mean for Frazier Park?

Frazier Park is a small place, but the owner of the outlet where it was bought, Nidal Khalil, knows there will be a huge change in the neighborhood. “That’s the most exciting news ever (to) happen to Frazier Park,” he said.

This little town has many regular lottery players. Most of its population is retired, but that doesn’t stop them from religiously playing the lottery when they can. For a store that’s six miles from the nearest interstate, it’s no small feat to sell a winner.

Not Necessarily A Local

The buyer for the ticket doesn’t necessarily have to come from the town, however. There’s a reason the seller hopes that it’s a local. However, it’s quite a feat to drive for so long off the interstate just to pick up a lottery ticket, no matter how big the jackpot is.

“It’s a tight-knit community; everybody knows each other,” clerk Janea Herrera noted. When she first heard that the store had sold a winner, she thought it was unlikely. However, on confirmation, she’s still not sure what to think of it.

The Winning Location Also Gets a Win

Why would a place like Frazier Park look forward to having their local lottery place sell a winning ticket? Well, it turns out that the winning seller also gets their share of a bonus for that sale. The California Lottery gives them $1 million for the luck of selling a winner.

When asked what he was going to do with the $1 million windfall, he had already decided where it was going. “I want to make sure my kids have enough funds for college,” he said. The winner is still a mystery since it hasn’t been claimed yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

What Are the Odds of Winning?

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are about 1 in 292 million. This means you have a very slim chance of winning the big prize, but smaller bonuses are available for matching fewer numbers.

Did you know that the winner for both the first and second-largest Powerball lottery jackpots came from California? On November 7^th, 2022, a man from California copped the largest lottery prize in history, a whopping $2.04 billion.

Can More Than One Person Win the Jackpot?

Since there are no restrictions on what numbers you can choose, more than one person can win the prize pool. In fact, it has happened before on a few occasions.

There are also a lot of small prizes, making up people who got multiple numbers in the draw. It’s estimated that around 5 million winners were in the draw, each winning smaller amounts.

How Did the Jackpot Get So Big?

With most lotteries, when someone doesn’t win the prize pot, it “rolls over,” meaning that it keeps the previous prize value and starts accumulating more. This prize pot had rolled over 35 times before the lucky person won.

Now that someone has won the lottery, it resets back to its base value of $20 million, which isn’t so little when you think about it.

What About Other Prizes?

In addition to the jackpot, Powerball offers several other prizes. You can win smaller amounts by matching some of the numbers, ranging from a few dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

These winnings don’t affect the prize pool for the jackpot, but the payouts can still be pretty significant. That explains why you have people buying dozens of tickets for their chance to win.

Do All States Have a Powerball Lottery?

No, not all states in the United States have a Powerball lottery. Powerball is available in most states, but a few do not participate.

States Without It

States that are against the lottery are Utah, Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, and Nevada. If you live in one of these states, you’ll have to cross into another state to buy your ticket.

Keeping Lottery Winners Safe

In California, lottery winnings are covered under public disclosure laws. However, the things the public gets to know are limited to the name of the winner, the place where the ticket was bought, the date the jackpot was won, and what payout type the winner chose for their winnings.

Payout Types

If you won the lottery, you’d have two choices of how you’d want to receive the jackpot. The annuity option gives you a small lump sum payment and then yearly payments for 29 years, increasing by 5% yearly.

Even if you won a billion or more dollars, you won’t get all that money for your payout. The State will take taxes for the lottery, and the amount you get might even be significantly less than what you were advertised as winning.

Can You Remain Anonymous After You Win?

California protects its lottery winners, but that’s not the case in every state. Depending on your location, you might have to disclose your hometown and name.

Remaining anonymous might be in your best interest since there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there. Be careful where and how you spend your cash, since it might attract attention.

Claim Time on the Lottery Ticket

Does the winner have to claim the prize immediately? It turns out that they have up to an entire year to claim the prize. However, once they do, The State will have to reveal their name to the public.

A year might sound like a long time, but there are still some cases where prizes were left unclaimed. Imagine winning a billion-dollar prize and not being able to claim it!

The Lottery Winner’s Curse

There’s a rumor going around that lottery winners are cursed because many end up losing or squandering their winnings, but is this true?

Most times, this is because of poor money management and nothing to do with an actual evil curse lurking behind the lottery winnings. So, what would you buy first with your share of a billion-dollar lottery?