A person with a ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday’s $1.3 billion jackpot came forward Monday to claim the prize, Oregon officials said.
The lottery ticket was purchased at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in the northeast part of the city, Oregon Lottery said in a statement.
Oregon Lottery is working with the person in a process that involves security measures and vetting that will take time before a winner is announced.
“This is an unprecedented jackpot win for Oregon Lottery,” Oregon Lottery Director Mike Wells said in the statement. “We’re taking every precaution to verify the winner before awarding the prize money.”
There is a lot of evidence to show that lottery winners have no idea how to handle that kind of money and don’t seek advice about it.
This person hanged themselves after blowing through all of their lottery money- https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lottery-winner-hangs-self-7-years-after-collecting-win/article4121212/
This person defaulted on a loan because they wanted more than the annual amount but didn’t opt for the lump sum and ended up in massive debt- http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2004-05-03-lottery-winner_x.htm
This guy ended up working at his old McDonalds job a year later- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582719/Lottery-millionaire-back-working-at-McDonalds.html
Here’s many more stores- https://www.gobankingrates.com/net-worth/bankruptcy/lottery-winners-who-lost-millions/
The lottery is a tax on the poor, who are sold the hardest on it. Players have virtually no chance of winning, meaning that most of the people who play have a basic lack of understanding of how to manage their money.
The McDonald’s job guy seems to be doing just fine, if he’s actually working there by choice as a social thing.
The perception is wildly skewed here because you never hear from the ones who use the money responsibly to buy a home, settle debt, etc. and just live an easier life. Sure, winning the lottery should not be your only option to ever achieve anything. I just don’t think that lottery winners in general have a huge problem.
Why would you play the lottery in the first place if you user money responsibly? Playing the lottery is the opposite of using money responsibly.
I can’t speak from those who gamble without being financially stable, but I join a lottery pool by contributing $5 whenever the jackpot is over $1B. My wife and I also have a decent salaries and save 65% of what we make. I guess that makes the $5 irresponsible while still being responsible financially overall?
Yeah exactly, I don’t think that’s irresponsible at all. You could have also spent $5 on a cookie you ended up hating.
Because for most people it’s a small vice that let’s you dream of a better life for a week.
That doesn’t make it any less financially irresponsible. “I can afford to be irresponsible at my current income level” suggests that they will have the same way of thinking if they happen to win.
Do you spend every single dollar you get responsibly? Do you have zero vices?
Just because you’re different doesn’t mean you’re better. Get off it with this rhetoric and let people live their lives, especially when it has zero impact on you.
If by ‘vices,’ you mean spend money on something on the chance that I might get something good out of it but probably not, no. I do not have such vices. I spend money on things that benefit me. I don’t really see the benefit of buying a lottery ticket since it will almost always lead to disappointment.
I’d encourage you to look up what a vice is.
It’s glaringly obvious your vices are different but I guarantee you have your own that some or many of us would find to be wildly irresponsible.
Okay.
Unless you count using cannabis for medical reasons and not for recreation in a state that isn’t legal a vice, I do not have any vices.
Not everyone who plays the lottery plays it consistently. I think I’m reasonably responsible with money, and I’m probably spending something like $20/year playing the lottery. If I won, the very first thing I’d do is get a lawyer. I wouldn’t even tell my friends or family until I got things sorted with a lawyer.
You don’t sound like the typical person I hear about winning the lottery.
That’s because you don’t hear about the majority of people winning the lottery. In some states, you can claim it anonymously (I know in CA you can’t). In those that don’t allow anonymous claims, you can set up an LLC to claim it.
People tell stories about the lottery winners who go bankrupt, but there are million dollar tickets sold literally every week. You don’t hear much about those because the jackpots are in the hundreds of millions now.
I am a fiscally responsible person with the amount of money I make. I spend more money on beer in a week than I do lottery tickets in a year, but I still drop a $20 when the jackpots hit a billion. If I would have won, I wouldn’t have told anyone except a trusted financial planner/adviser until all the stuff is all set up, and then I would only tell a few specific people. To everyone else, I would just say I helped a buddy start a new company that was sold to investors. You wouldn’t ever hear about me.
Even in California, the only information you’re required to release is your name and the city (maybe even the exact store) the ticket was purchased. You don’t have to get your picture taken and everything, someone with a commonish name living in a populated area could easily stay anonymous.
I couldn’t totally imagine someone with an already fairly stable income buying a set amount of lottery tickets within their budget as a hobby. It’s not my thing, but a fair number of people are into it.
Nah there’s statistics on it. A huge fraction end up broke. I’m too lazy to dig them up, but you can find numbers on it. In any case, it’s not a actually limited to people who but lotto tickets. Humans are generally bad at handling massive windfalls.