– A small town warehouse supervisor turned in one of three tickets splitting the world-record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot, and swiftly announced that he would take his money now, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.
Advertisement
Their daughter Tiffany, a recent college graduate, wanted to pay off her student loans and buy a horse.
“That’s what we’ve done all of our lives, is work”.
“Now I’ll be nervous because everybody knows, ” John Robinson said.
The winning tickets were bought at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, Calif.; Naifeh’s Food Mart in Munford, Tenn.; and a Publix grocery in Melbourne Beach, Fla., USA Today reported.
John Robinson works in information technology and his wife is employed at a dermatologist’s office in Memphis, which is about 25 miles south of Munford.
Workers celebrated at a Southern California nursing home when word spread that a co-worker had a winning ticket for this week’s $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot.
A nurse in Pomona believed she had the winning ticket after her son told her as a prank that a ticket purchased by her boss, Shlomo Rechnitz, had the winning numbers.
Neither Bragg nor the Robinsons have turned in their tickets to lottery officials for confirmation.
Crowds descended on the California store that sold a winning ticket, with customers snapping pictures and congratulating the sales associate. The odds of winning the Powerball are one in 292.2 million.
Powerball winners in California have up to a year after the drawing to claim their prize.
About 30 minutes later, the big winner’s kids called and told her to check her numbers. The couple sent copies of the ticket to NBC News, which has done a background check on them and worked to independently verify their ticket as the victor.
Munford’s mayor, Dwayne Cole, had wished openly Thursday for an investment in the town, whose annual budget is $3.67 million.
It was the largest lottery prize ever offered in North America, and no other lottery in the world had ever featured a jackpot of that size that could be won on a single ticket. The family was joined by their new lawyer, Joe Townsend, who was first to urge them to make their TV appearance. Saying they had slept only one hour in the last 48, they excused themselves from the press conference to get rest.
Advertisement
“The Chino Hills victor has not come forward yet”, California Lottery said on its Twitter feed.
