California Los Angeles’ $1Billion Powerball jackpot: Mystery winner yet to step forward to claim the historic prize

With striking the third largest Powerball jackpot, California has won one of the largest lotteries ever with a single winning ticket. The jackpot’s worth was earlier estimated to be $1 billion. However, later at the time of the drawing, the numbers were raised to $1.08 billion. With the given history of Powerball, the recent win is ultimately the sixth-largest lottery jackpot ever won in the United States.

The winning numbers revealed this Wednesday, July 19, were - white balls of 7, 10, 11, 13, and 24, and the Powerball was 24. The presumed lucky winner of the historic jackpot was seen at the downtown Los Angeles store. This mystery figure has become a nationwide trending topic as, despite proclaiming she won the Powerball jackpot, she has yet to claim her prize money.

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California Lottery spokesperson urges mystery Powerball jackpot winner to “claim their prize”

Last spotted at the Las Palmitas Mini Market in downtown LA, the claimant of the Powerball jackpot, a woman wearing a black cap, came into the store screaming out of excitement and hugged people after proclaiming that she won the grand prize.

However, instead of claiming the prize money, she frantically left the store and drove off in her car. "Who won the Powerball last night?" has been trending for a while now, and being the third-largest Powerball jackpot, it is indeed a big deal for many.

California Lottery officials have yet to make the winners’ name public, as they still don’t know about the person holding the "golden ticket." Carolyn Becker, the spokesperson for the California Lottery, stated in a press conference that,

"They have to claim their prize, and then we have to spend time vetting the winner to make sure it is the right person. Integrity and transparency are incredibly important to us, so we will probably not know for months and months. We don't know if that person lives here locally if it's a group, if they were passing by. This person could quite literally be anywhere."

After the news of the historic single lottery ticket being sold at the Las Palmitas Mini Market store went viral, the place became a nationwide sensation. People from all around have been flocking to the store, forming long queues, and eagerly buying Powerball jackpot tickets, hoping to test their luck and become the next fortunate billionaire.

As revealed by the official website of Powerball, the current world record for the largest-ever jackpot was estimated at $2.04 billion on November 7, 2022. Edwin Castro, the winner behind the historical jackpot, walked away with the largest cash payout in the history of Powerball.

According to Powerball’s website, the overall odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, which makes the chances of taking the colossal prize home extremely slim.