Everything we know about the winner of the $1.726 Billion Powerball Jackpot

Last Wednesday, Powerball once again made world lottery history, drawing the second largest jackpot to date, a prize that finally amounted to $1.726 billion after the final tally of the draw's sales.

The winning numbers of the draw were 22, 24, 40, 52, 64 and Powerball 10.

This jackpot, dethroned the previous $1.58 billion prize distributed in January 2016, which until now stood as the second largest jackpot in lottery history, leaving it in third place, and only being surpassed by the incredible $2.04 billion jackpot distributed in November 2022, which for the moment stands as the record prize.

Once again, California takes the big prize. In fact, out of the 5 biggest jackpots distributed in the history of Powerball, the first 4 have been won in California, so it seems that luck is smiling especially to players from this state. In this case, the prize was sold at the Midway Market & Liquor store in the small town of Frazier Park, which is located in Kern County about 75 km north of the popular city of Los Angeles.

Speculation about the identity of the winner

Undoubtedly, this is a historic event for the small community of no more than 2,600 residents, mostly seniors and retirees. According to one of the owners of the store where the lucky ticket was sold, this prize "is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened in Frazier Park".

However, although this is a close-knit community where almost everyone knows each other, it is not yet known who the lucky winner might be. The owners of the store, who will walk away with a $1 million prize for having been where the ticket was sold, are not yet able to say who the winner might be, although they have high hopes that it will be one of the members of the community. As the store is located far from the highway, people from outside the community rarely come to shop, as it would mean taking a major detour from the main route.

In any case, the uncertainty about the identity of the winner will be revealed sooner or later, since the state of California is one of the U.S. states where the authorities require lottery winners to reveal their identity in order to collect the prize. The reason for this is to convey to the population a greater transparency and guarantees that the winners' existence is true.

Although the standard deadline to collect a prize is 3 months, in the case of jackpots such as Powerball, winners have up to 1 year after the date of the draw to come forward. And, given the magnitude of the prize, it is not unusual for them to do so, since even the lottery itself suggests taking legal and financial advice from experts before taking action on the prize.

How much will the winner actually collect?

There has also been a lot of speculation about the actual amount the winner will receive when it comes to collecting the prize. Powerball rules state that those who purchase a physical ticket in the U.S. have the choice of two ways to collect the prize: collect the full prize but in annuities, or collect the reduced prize in a lump sum.

The lump sum payment is subject to withholding of approximately 55% of the advertised value of the prize, before taxes. Thus, those who choose to collect the prize in this way will know that the lottery will withhold more than half of the amount for handling fees. In this case, the player would receive approximately $774 million in cash.

In the case of choosing the annuity payment, he/she would be entitled to collect the full prize, albeit over a long period of time. This means that most winners of large jackpots eventually choose to receive all the money at once, even if this means giving up part of the prize.

However, whichever option they choose, in both cases the final prize amount will be subject to a 37% federal tax. Some states also apply additional state taxes, although this is not the case in California, where winners are not required to pay additional state taxes.

Summary: All that is known so far about the winner

In summary, what we know so far about the lucky winner, is that since it is a single ticket it is most likely a single person; and that he bought his ticket in a store in the small town of Frazier Park in California, a place somewhat removed from the main road and inhabited by no more than 2,600 people, so it is speculated that it may be one of these residents, mainly retirees who are the largest clientele of the premises. In any case, he will have up to a year to come forward to claim his prize.