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What We Know So Far About The $1 Billion Winning Powerball Ticket Sold In Downtown LA
Angelica Menjivar co-owns the Las Palmitas market where the $1 billion Powerball was drawn.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
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LAist
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The winning ticket for the $1 billion Powerball jackpot was sold in Los Angeles at Las Palmitas Mini Market.
The small store in the downtown L.A. fashion district — which offers cold drinks, chips, and other mini-market items — was a hub of activity Thursday morning as Powerball officials worked to change out signs promoting the lottery ahead of a scheduled 11 a.m. news conference.
Someone had used a black marker to change the sidewalk sign from "Millionaire Made Here" to "Billionaire Made Here."
"We are here to celebrate the most recent Powerball win," said Alva Johnson, director of the California State Lottery, inside the store.
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California Lottery officials hold a replica check for the Powerball winner at the downtown Los Angeles location where the winning ticket was bought.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist
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The location is a short distance from the heart of L.A.'s Skid Row, where many of the available resources for unhoused people in the area are centered.
Johnson and half a dozen other lottery officials held two large replica checks in front of the store. The first check: for $1,080,000,000, belonging to a Powerball winner who had not come forward.
"If a person thinks they’re the winner they should immediately sign the back of the ticket, keep it safe and then bring it to the nearest lottery district office," Johnson said.
The store also wins
The second check, for $1,000,000, goes to the store for selling the winning ticket.
"We feel so grateful and happy," said Angelica Menjivar, who co-owns Las Palmitas with her mother, both Salvadoran immigrants. They founded the store seven years ago.
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She said the store's share may go to the third generation’s college fund.
"Maybe saving the money for my girls maybe so they can go to school," maybe at a university back east, she said.
About the win
This is the third largest Powerball prize in U.S. history, according to statistics from lottery officials (and the sixth largest overall lottery jackpot, according to the Associated Press.) It's also the second time in less than a year that a supermassive payout came from a ticket sold in the L.A. area. That jackpot was $2 billion, the largest ever, from a ticket sold in Altadena last November.
The winning numbers: 7-10-11-13-24, and the Powerball number was 24.
Lottery officials said the winner could forego the annuitized prize of $1.08 billion for a lump sum payment of $558.1 million.
Other winners
Another 36 ticket holders won $1 million in the Wednesday night drawing, seven of those tickets were sold in California.
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About the odds
According to Powerball officials the odds of winning a jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
Reaction in the community
One man walking down Wall Street, where the mini-market storefront was one of the few open early, spotted the signs and asked: "How much did they win?"
When he heard a billion, he repeated the figure to make sure it was correct.
Other store owners watched from across the street at stores that offer sales racks of clothes on the sidewalk with enticements like: 3 for $10.
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