A person with a ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday’s $1.3 billion jackpot came forward Monday to claim the prize, Oregon officials said.
The lottery ticket was purchased at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in the northeast part of the city, Oregon Lottery said in a statement.
Oregon Lottery is working with the person in a process that involves security measures and vetting that will take time before a winner is announced.
“This is an unprecedented jackpot win for Oregon Lottery,” Oregon Lottery Director Mike Wells said in the statement. “We’re taking every precaution to verify the winner before awarding the prize money.”
I think that’s actually a pretty bad sign for the person that won, to show up the first day possible to claim it. It seems like it would be much more prudent to get some legal and financial advice beforehand. Like if I won I have zero idea how to handle that kind of money on even the most basic logistical level. Hopefully it doesn’t ruin their life.
There is a lot of evidence to show that lottery winners have no idea how to handle that kind of money and don’t seek advice about it.
This person hanged themselves after blowing through all of their lottery money- https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lottery-winner-hangs-self-7-years-after-collecting-win/article4121212/
This person defaulted on a loan because they wanted more than the annual amount but didn’t opt for the lump sum and ended up in massive debt- http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2004-05-03-lottery-winner_x.htm
This guy ended up working at his old McDonalds job a year later- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582719/Lottery-millionaire-back-working-at-McDonalds.html
Here’s many more stores- https://www.gobankingrates.com/net-worth/bankruptcy/lottery-winners-who-lost-millions/
The lottery is a tax on the poor, who are sold the hardest on it. Players have virtually no chance of winning, meaning that most of the people who play have a basic lack of understanding of how to manage their money.
The perception is wildly skewed here because you never hear from the ones who use the money responsibly to buy a home, settle debt, etc. and just live an easier life. Sure, winning the lottery should not be your only option to ever achieve anything. I just don’t think that lottery winners in general have a huge problem.
Why would you play the lottery in the first place if you user money responsibly? Playing the lottery is the opposite of using money responsibly.
Because for most people it’s a small vice that let’s you dream of a better life for a week.
That doesn’t make it any less financially irresponsible. “I can afford to be irresponsible at my current income level” suggests that they will have the same way of thinking if they happen to win.
Do you spend every single dollar you get responsibly? Do you have zero vices?
Just because you’re different doesn’t mean you’re better. Get off it with this rhetoric and let people live their lives, especially when it has zero impact on you.
If by ‘vices,’ you mean spend money on something on the chance that I might get something good out of it but probably not, no. I do not have such vices. I spend money on things that benefit me. I don’t really see the benefit of buying a lottery ticket since it will almost always lead to disappointment.
Not everyone who plays the lottery plays it consistently. I think I’m reasonably responsible with money, and I’m probably spending something like $20/year playing the lottery. If I won, the very first thing I’d do is get a lawyer. I wouldn’t even tell my friends or family until I got things sorted with a lawyer.
You don’t sound like the typical person I hear about winning the lottery.
I can’t speak from those who gamble without being financially stable, but I join a lottery pool by contributing $5 whenever the jackpot is over $1B. My wife and I also have a decent salaries and save 65% of what we make. I guess that makes the $5 irresponsible while still being responsible financially overall?
The McDonald’s job guy seems to be doing just fine, if he’s actually working there by choice as a social thing.
Luke Pittard, 25, won a £1.3m fortune, but applied to get his old job back because he missed his workmates.
Mr Pittard said yesterday: "They all think I’m a bit mad but I tell them there’s more to life than money.
Yeah this guy seems to have made out pretty well. Can’t blame them at all for wanting to keep what they enjoyed about their life even with the new money. Not that I disagree that the lotto is a tax on the poor but this guy is the opposite of what that comment was trying to prove.
The fundamental issue with winning the lottery is that nobody who understands personal finance enough to handle winning would ever waste money playing the lottery. The most likely winners are people who buy lots of lottery tickets, and those people are the least prepared to handle winning.
It’s hard to imagine burning through $1.3B, but after taxes it’ll only be about $400M. All it takes is a huge mansion, a mega yacht, and a high end private plane to put yourself into a significant financial tailspin from the costs of maintenance, taxes, staffing, and energy.
By the time you realize what poor decisions you’ve made, getting out of it can be impossible. The yes-men who sold you all your luxuries have probably convinced you to dump your money on plenty of other endeavors designed specifically to separate you from your winnings.
The one percenters only get away with their extravagant lifestyles because they understand how to exploit the system to their advantage, and they can keep up the expenses by amassing more wealth.
Not to mention, if you already have a gambling problem, as many lottery players do, the thrill of winning and access to that kind of cash is likely to motivate you to gamble millions more looking for the next dopamine dump.
That this person claimed the prize so quickly absolutely is a bad sign for their future. If they try to do it their way, they will get conned out of everything within a decade, and their return to poverty will be crushing.
The fundamental issue with winning the lottery is that nobody who understands personal finance enough to handle winning would ever waste money playing the lottery.
It’s hard to imagine burning through $1.3B, but after taxes it’ll only be about $400M.
I don’t think you understand personal finance. No one in America pays a 70% effective tax rate. How did you end up at $400M??
The lump sum payout for the $1.3 billion was $621 million. Lottery winnings are taxed as income putting the winner in the 37% federal tax bracket leaving $391.2 million. After taking out Oregon state taxes, the winner would be left with $329.8 million.
All it takes is a huge mansion, a mega yacht, and a high end private plane to put yourself into a significant financial tailspin from the costs of maintenance, taxes, staffing, and energy.
Imagine getting that kind of life-changing sum of money and immediately blowing it on what is probably literally the top 3 highest maintenance luxury items in the world instead of keeping a good portion of it in some index fund and live comfortably for the rest of your life.
I know some people actually do this but seeing it broken down like that makes it even more baffling
I was hoping they use the money for good. But looks like they are stupid and going come out and blow the money stupidly. Goddamm I just feel it all rigged.
5 years untill they are broke, I bet one upvote!
Big jackpot winners like this rarely go broke. The ones you hear about won much less.
But they are some astronomical amount more likey to die.
Like 200x more likely if you win a jackpot
If M. C. Hammer can go broke, a lottery winner can.
Do you win if they die? Because solid chance they are killed by someone else or drugs.
Good point, I’d call that a tie, since if they die before going broke the money would be inherited by someone, someone who possibly learned a thing or two by how the guy spent the money.
Half of lottery winners lose it all in less than a year, let’s hope this isn’t one of them
That’s a misbelief, most lottery winner do just fine long after winning. We just only hear about the ones who go broke because that’s report worthy.
And it’s almost impossible to go broke with winning 1 billion. Even if you are only left with “only” 500 mil after taxes, and you manage to lose 99% of that, you are still left with 5 million. Which is still enough to have a comfortable life.
And it’s almost impossible to go broke with winning 1 billion. Even if you are only left with “only” 500 mil after taxes, and you manage to lose 99% of that, you are still left with 5 million.
This jackpot was $1.3B. If they take the cash payout instead of the annuity that immediately reduces to $621M. They’ll owe 37% on that (well 37% on the vast majority in the top tax bracket) for the year to the IRS. And then it looks like 8% to the state of Oregon. So somewhere around $341M. Still an unimaginable sum.for most. Just wanted to clarify because I think a lot of people assume the “cash value” is post-tax.
It may be true, if only because “winning the lottery” can also include the smaller prizes, and then by number there are a lot more of those, so half goes a long way…
The most important thing about having a lot of money it’s knowing how money works, that’s why what easy comes easy goes.
Uh huh. I guess that’s why most people who inherited their parent’s money are all living on the street now.
“I’m just so happy that finally Oregon won the big jackpot because it’s always on the East Coast,” Musser said. “Now that Oregon won it … there’s more hope for Oregon. Maybe we’ll win it again.”
I wonder if there’s any truth to this or it’s just confirmation bias on her part. It says just before that the largest Powerball jackpot ever was won in California…
Yeah, I feel like most of the jackpots have been in CA. I know at least two of the billion dollar ones were in CA.
There is no truth to this. A win in Oregon does not increase or decrease the chances of a future win in Oregon. The probabilities are fully independent of one another. There is no plausible means by which the probability of a future drawing selecting a ticket held in a particular state is affected by the residences of previous winning ticket holders.
The idea that “X just won, therefore X is on a roll and will continue to win” and “X hasn’t won in a long time, therefore X is overdue for a win and should win in the near future” are both examples of the Gambler’s Fallacy.
Parents normally should educate their children, what unfournetly goes dramatically decreasing.
