Current News
 |
|||||||||||
FLORIDA'S SECOND POWERBALL® JACKPOT WINNER CLAIMS $73.8 MILLION PRIZE TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Lottery today announced that the $73.8 million jackpot from the POWERBALL® drawing held on July 10 was claimed by Elizabeth Choras-Hanna, 35, of Hollywood. The winner will receive a one-time, lump-sum payment for the winnings in the amount of $38,929,055.11. Elizabeth, who is an out-of-work medical assistant, was accompanied to Lottery headquarters by her twin sister Alexandra, a firefighter and paramedic, and Alexandra's husband, a retired firefighter. The three said they plan to share the money. "We always go grocery shopping at Publix together and before we leave we buy one FLORIDA LOTTO and one POWERBALL Quick Pick ticket," Elizabeth said. "Alexandra's husband was out of town so we decided to pick out a DVD from the movie rental box and while we were waiting for the movie I went to buy the tickets. The next day I went to another Publix and had them check my tickets and discovered our ticket was the jackpot-winner." When asked why they waited three weeks before coming forward to claim their prize, Alexandra simply responded that they wanted to get their affairs in order first. The POWERBALL jackpot-winning ticket was sold at Publix, located at located at 11977 Southern Boulevard in Royal Palm Beach. The Florida Lottery retailer received a bonus commission of $40,000 for selling the jackpot-winning ticket. POWERBALL jackpots start at $20 million and increase with each rollover. The multi-state, mega-jackpot game also offers an add-on feature called Power Play® that gives players a chance to win up to $1 million. With the purchase of a POWERBALL ticket, players can add Power Play for $1 more per play to multiply their non-jackpot prize winnings by up to five times. Power Play purchasers who match five numbers win $1 million - the POWERBALL match 5 prize multiplied by five. All other non-jackpot prizes will be multiplied by the Power Play number, from 2 through 5, selected at draw time. Since POWERBALL ticket sales in Florida began on January 4, 2009, Florida has the most POWERBALL winners of any state. The Florida Lottery has had 15 winners at the $1 million prize level, 88 winners at the $200,000 level, and a total of more than 16 million players winning more than $291 million. The next POWERBALL drawing will be held Saturday, July 31, at 10:59 p.m. ET with a $85 million jackpot. For more information on POWERBALL, please visit the Florida Lottery Web site at flalottery.com. Winning numbers are available on the Lottery Web site, at retailers statewide and by phone at (850) 921-PLAY. # # # |
|||||||||||