Christmas came a day late for one Powerball player this year—but the wait was well worth it.
One person purchased the lone winning ticket to the Dec. 26 Powerball drawing a ticket worth $298.3 million.
The name of the lucky Lotto gambler has not yet been announced—but the New York Lottery has revealed that the ticket was purchased at Arnold’s Service Station at 1868 Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn, New York.
The lucky winner will either receive a lump sum payment—less than the full $298.3 million, but all of it available immediately—or receive the money in a payment plan which will guarantee an income for a long time to come.
The one-time payout would amount to $180.2 million. Taxes would reduce that total to $114 million.
The payment plan would involve 30 graduated payments over 29 years. The winner would have no trouble getting a good line of credit with a guaranteed income like that.
The lucky store owner at Arnold’s will also get a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
The #Powerball results are in!
Check your numbers now: https://t.co/1JiJxhjpBb pic.twitter.com/RT0om9MqEw
— Powerball USA (@PowerballUSA) December 27, 2018
New York Scores a Lotto Hat Trick
This win marks the third time this year New York store has sold the winning ticket—not bad considering there have only been eight winners in 2018.
New Yorker Nandlall Mangal scored a cool $245.6 million as the sole winning ticket holder in an August draw.
Robert Bailey, also of New York, was one of two winners in the Oct. 27 drawing. Bailey, a retired Manhattanite, bought his ticket in a deli in West Harlem.
Bailey had to split his winnings, but that jackpot, $687.8 million, was so big that even split in half, it made Bailey the biggest winner in New York lottery history. NBC News reported that the jackpot was the fourth biggest in U. S. history.
Bailey told NBC News that he had been playing the same set of numbers for decades.
“A family member gave me the numbers over twenty-five years ago and I faithfully play them,” he said.
Bailey opted for the one-time payout and collected more than $125 million after taxes.
Funds for a Charitable Foundation
The other winner was Leyenne West of Redfield, Iowa, a town of 800 people near Des Moines. The 51-year-old former insurance saleswoman—she retired a week after winning—also opted for the lump-sum payment.
West and her family are using part of the winnings to establish the Callum Foundation to honor her grandson, Callum, who was born prematurely and lived just one day.
The Callum Foundation will provide grants to help alleviate poverty and hunger and encourage education, animal welfare, and help for veterans. West’s father was a Vietnam War veteran, the Des Moines register reported.
“We have a board set up that will go over the requests and decide what is in the best interests of the Callum Foundation,” West explained.
“The whole thing of knowing when to pull together a team and work on these plans came from years of playing and daydreaming about winning the lottery. Then once it finally happens, it’s a whole new ballgame.”
