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.”
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.
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.
https://www.usamega.com/powerball/jackpot/2024/4/6
Taking the lump sum, which is roughly half the grand prize, is practically always the better deal. Almost everyone takes the lump sum. If you want the full amount you get it in yearly installments over 40 years. Anyway, so you pay income taxes on the lump sum.
What?
The after tax amount for an Oregon winner selecting the cash payout would be $329.8 million.
https://www.usamega.com/powerball/jackpot/2024/4/6
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