A lucky resident of Southlake is $1 million richer thanks to a Quick Pick lottery ticket purchased for the June 11 Powerball drawing conducted by the Texas Lottery Commission. The winner has chosen to stay anonymous.
The Powerball jackpot was at $20 million when the aforementioned winning ticket was purchased at a Walmart store in Roanoke. The winner had five out of the six numbers drawn; in other words, the ticket was just one digit shy of the entire jackpot prize.
The five numbers on the ticket were 18, 20, 26, 53, and 69; however, the sixth digit needed for the full jackpot, which rolls over and increases with each drawing if there are no winners, was missing during the Saturday drawing of the lottery. Powerball plays three times each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
In Texas, Powerball lottery players must pick six numbers on their tickets. Five of the numbers run from 01 to 69, corresponding to the white balls that fly inside the mechanical drawing machines set up at the Lottery Commission building in Austin. The sixth number is needed to claim the jackpot; it runs from 00 to 26, and it is drawn from a separate machine that tumbles red balls.
The winning ticket purchased by the Southlake resident was a Quick Pick lottery play, which means that the six numbers were randomly selected by the vending terminal.
The Quick Pick method is favored among many Powerball players who are either in a rush or prefer the terminal’s randomized algorithm. Other players apply various strategies they believe to be more in line with their notions of good luck and fortune; such picking strategies may rely on mojo, numerology, tradition, or superstition.
Either way, the Powerball odds of winning the jackpot are mathematically immutable: there is a one in 25,827,165 chance of correctly picking all six numbers, so it is safe to say that players are really at the mercy of Lady Luck when they purchase their tickets.
A recent Powerball drawing took place on Wednesday for a $312 million jackpot that did not feature winning tickets, which means that the big prize rolled to the next drawing, thus making it more attractive to Texas players.
There were no Powerball jackpot winners or second place winners for the $335 million June 25 drawing, so the prize money rolled over again. The next jackpot drawing will be held Monday, June 27, and the annuitized value for the drawing is $344 million, with a cash value of $196.7 million.
According to estimates by online tax filing service Intuit, most Powerball jackpot winners will fall into the highest income tax bracket determined by the Internal Revenue Service. This would entail a tax liability of at least 37%, even when the disbursement is annualized.
