Two Powerball tickets sold in Oregon won $50,000 over the weekend as the jackpot has risen to an estimated $1.55 billion for Monday night’s drawing.
They’re two of the five $50,000 tickets sold in recent weeks. The Oregon Lottery says Jay Haggard, 62 of Tillamook, won his $50,000 prize in the September 30 drawing and claimed it on Friday.
Haggard broke the news to his son after hearing on the radio that a winner had been sold in Tillamook.
“Hey, you know how someone hit the $50,000 Powerball in Tillamook? Well, I’m that guy!” Haggard said, according to the Oregon Lottery.
He plans to use the money to take his family to a few Seattle Mariners games and pay bills.
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The two tickets sold over the weekend were in Hillsboro and Beaverton.
Oregon has sold $5.6 million in winning Powerball prizes during the current run to $1.55 billion.
This is the third-largest prize in Powerball history. It’s also the first time ever that Powerball has produced two consecutive jackpot runs of $1 billion or more. The scarcity of Powerball jackpot winners reflects the game’s daunting odds of 1 in 292.2 million.
Approximately a third of sales from the game will be returned to state beneficiaries to support economic development, education, veteran services, state parks and more. During this latest Powerball run, the Oregon Lottery has sold more than $27 million, the lottery said.
A few reminders if you are playing:
- Always sign the back of your ticket so someone can’t take it and claim it as theirs.
- Consult with a trusted financial planner or other financial professional to make a plan for the money.
- Under Oregon law, the identities of winners are public record. You cannot choose to remain anonymous.
Powerball is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Lotteries promote the $1.55 billion jackpot, but the prize everyone is dreaming of is less than half that amount — $679.8 million. That’s because the $1.55 billion prize is for a sole winner who is paid over 30 years through an annuity, in which the $679.8 million cash prize is invested and pays more over time.
As interest rates have risen in the past year, the cash prize has generated much larger annuity prizes. Winners rarely take the annuity option, but that’s the big number that is displayed on lottery billboards.
As Drew Svitko, the Pennsylvania Lottery’s executive director, put it last fall, “We use investments to fund the annuity to pay that prize, so the investments rely on interest, and the degree to which interest rates affect the value of those investments also affect that jackpot.”
