A small supermarket in Los Angeles, just a few blocks from the Skid Row homeless camps, was revealed as the location where the Powerball winning ticket was sold.
The $1.08 billion winning ticket from Wednesday’s drawing was sold at the Las Palmitas Mini Market, whose owner will receive a $1 million bonus, California Lottery officials confirmed.
Shop owner Nabor Herrera said he only realized he’d sold the winning ticket when he got to work early Thursday and saw cameras parked outside the shop, which he originally thought were intended for a film scene.
“I’m telling you it’s a surprise to me, I didn’t know what it was — filming or what,” the father-of-four told KTLA-TV.
Herrera, who has owned the store for seven years, said he has no idea who bought the winning ticket, adding that he’s been selling a lot of Powerball tickets over the past few days, mostly to neighborhood locals.
The store owner said he plans to use his $1 million seller bonus to grow his business and maybe take his family on a “week-long” vacation to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
The $1.08 billion winning ticket in Wednesday’s drawing was sold at the Las Palmitas Mini Market, owned by store owner Nabor Herrera (above), who receives a $1 million retailer bonus
The $1.04 billion winning ticket from Wednesday’s drawing was sold at the Las Palmitas Mini Market, with owners receiving a $1 million bonus
The store is a narrow hole in the wall with shelves full of snacks and other items, not far from impoverished Skid Row
The Powerball winner has one year to come forward and it’s not uncommon for big jackpot winners to wait weeks or even months to claim the prize as they assemble a team of financial and legal advisors.
The winner can choose between the grand total of $1.08 billion, paid in annual increments for 29 years, or a one-time lump sum of $558.1 million before taxes. The winning numbers for Wednesday night’s drawing were: white balls 7, 10, 11, 13, 24 and red Powerball 24.
Numerous comments were left on Herrera’s supermarket Google Maps page congratulating the store owner and the unidentified jackpot winner.
“I know whoever won tonight really needed a blessing…I hope this humble place gets enhanced with the seller bonus,” one person commented.
Another speculated that the jackpot winner might live on the streets of Skid Row, commenting that he could “go from a tent to Hidden Hills,” an upscale gated community in the Santa Monica Mountains.
By coincidence, this week’s winning ticket was sold just 13 miles from the supermarket where Powerball winner Edwin Castro bought his ticket for November’s $2.04 billion jackpot – the largest in US history.
California requires lottery winners to provide their names when claiming prizes. This measure is intended to protect the integrity of the draws through transparency.
But for lottery winners, the ads can draw unwelcome attention — as Castro found when he was sued by a man who claimed to be the true owner of the winning ticket.
Castro bought his ticket at Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, which was owned by Joe Chahayed – father-in-law of former NFL player Domata Peko.
California pays out the highest lottery bonuses to retailers of any state, and Chahayed received the maximum retailer payout of $1 million, monies he vowed to share with family members and charities.
Until the jackpot is hit on Wednesday, all eyes will be on Las Palmitas Mini Market, the small convenience store where the winning ticket was sold.
A narrow hole in the wall with shelves stacked with snacks and other items, the store is not far from impoverished Skid Row, where homeless encampments line the streets.
Final ticket sales took the jackpot at the time of the draw from its previous estimate of $1 billion to $1.08 billion, rising from the seventh-largest to the sixth-largest US lottery jackpot ever won.
California Lottery officials said the state sold seven tickets that matched five winning numbers in Wednesday’s drawing, narrowly missing the Powerball number, in addition to the jackpot winner.
These tickets will win you $448,750 each and have been sold in Hayward, La Puente, Los Angeles, Northridge, San Francisco, Santa Clara and South Lake Tahoe.
Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
This week’s winning ticket was sold just 13 miles from the supermarket where Powerball winner Edwin Castro (right) bought his ticket for the $2.04 billion November jackpot
Joe Chahayed, the owner of Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, California, sold the $2.04 billion Powerball ticket in November. Chahayed won $1 million selling the ticket at his store
Castro bought his ticket at Joe’s Service Center (above) in Altadena, owned by Joe Chahayed – father-in-law of former NFL player Domata Peko
Lottery jackpots have only gotten bigger in recent years after changes have been made that have increased the odds and made winning more difficult.
In 2015, the Powerball lottery increased the odds of winning from 1 in 175.2 million to 1 in 292.2 million.
Mega Millions followed two years later, increasing the odds of winning the grand prize from 1 in 258.9 million to 1 in 302.6 million.
The largest lottery payout in US history was a whopping $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot, hit on November 8, 2022, with the winning ticket being sold in California.
The biggest Mega Millions jackpot was $1.537 billion and was won by an anonymous player in South Carolina on October 23, 2018.
The whopping $1 billion Powerball payout and a separate Mega Millions jackpot of a whopping $720 million sparked rapid ticket sales at convenience stores and gas stations across the country on Wednesday.
It’s only the fifth time jackpots from both drawings have surpassed the $500 million mark at the same time, and the total payout of $1.72 billion is the fifth-highest in history, according to data provided to Lottery Critic has provided.