David Kaltschmidt and Maureen Smith of Melbourne Beach revealed that they held a winning ticket, worth $528.8 million, from the January 13 drawing at the state’s lottery headquarters in Tallahassee.
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Maureen Smith, a self-described homemaker, and her husband, David Kaltschmidt, a long-time manufacturing engineer for Northrop Grumman, opted for a one-time lump sum payment of $327,800,000 before taxes. The second Powerball $1.5 billion jackpot winners came forward to claim their prize in Florida. They only told a few family members this week, then went public at a press conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday.
Smith has been playing the same Lottery numbers for years and bought the winning ticket at her local supermarket Publix, located at 3830 Highway A1A in Melbourne Beach.
The winning numbers were 4-8-19-27-34, and the Powerball was 10.
Tennessee’s John and Lisa Robertson cashed in their ticket last month, also taking the lump sum.
The California victor has yet to come forward.
“No”, Smith said, when asked if she had any plans for the money beyond getting a massage. “She’s treated like a queen already”, Marylin said with a laugh. Publix received $100,000 for selling the jackpot-winning ticket. “We are going to take care of family, but there is a lot to think about because it is all so stressful and new”. But Kaltschmidt said he has upgraded the home security system, and Smith, originally from Long Island, seemed especially tense.
The odds of winning it were put at 1 in 292.2 million. “I said, ‘Did you win the Powerball?’ She said, ‘No, ‘ very calmly, ‘No'”. “I looked online to make sure they were correct”.
“I knew they were my numbers… we didn’t believe it”, said Smith.
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The Powerball lottery ballooned to $1.58bn after more than 10 weeks without a victor.
