Powerball Winner Paul White Hilarious Press Conference After Winning $149 million Prize [Full]
  • 6 years ago
Powerball winner Paul White of Ham Lake, Minnesota, steps forward to claim nearly $150 million in August 7 Powerball jackpot | Minnesota Powerball Winner Paul White Claims Prize of nearly $150 million\r
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3 Powerball Winners 3 winning tickets for $448M Powerball jackpot sold in New Jersey, Minnesota 3 Powerball Winners 3 winning tickets for $448M Powerball jackpot sold in New Jersey, Minnesota\r
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At least three people in two states have beaten astronomical odds to become the nations latest Powerball millionaires.\r
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Sue Dooley, senior drawing manager production coordinator for the Multi-State Lottery Association, said late Wednesday night that three tickets matched the winning numbers and will split the lotterys latest massive jackpot: $448 million.\r
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We had three grand prize winners, Dooley said. One was in Minnesota and two were in New Jersey.\r
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The winning numbers drawn Wednesday night were: 05, 25, 30, 58, 59 and Powerball 32.\r
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The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. reported early Thursday that a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Lottery said that one of the multimillion-dollar tickets was purchased at a supermarket in South Brunswick, N.J., and the other ticket was sold in Little Egg Harbor, N.J.\r
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Information on the Minnesota ticket was not available early Thursday.\r
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The allure of capturing the latest massive Powerball jackpot had players in a buying frenzy, further confirming a trend that lottery officials say has become the big ticket norm: Fatigued Powerball players, increasingly blase about smaller payouts, often dont get into the game until the jackpot offers big bucks.\r
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During Wednesday nights telecast, Powerball officials announced the jackpot that previously in the day was pegged at $425 million had grown to an estimated $448 million.\r
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Meghan Graham, a convenience store worker from Brookline, Mass., has purchased nearly a dozen Powerball tickets in recent months thanks to the huge jackpots, and the third largest-ever pot was enough reason to buy again.\r
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The more it keeps increasing, that means nobody is winning . a lot of people are gonna keep buying tickets and tickets and tickets and you never know, you just might get lucky if you pick the right numbers, she said.\r
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A recent game change intended to build excitement about the lottery increased the frequency of huge jackpots, and Wednesdays jackpot drawing comes only a few months after the biggest Powerball jackpot in history -- a $590 million pot won in Florida by an 84-year-old widow. The second largest Powerball jackpot was won in November and split between two tickets from Arizona and Missouri.\r
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And New Jerseys two new winners join Passaic resident Pedro Quezada, who was the lone winner of the March 23 Powerball drawing. The 44-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic claimed a lump-sum payment worth $221 million, or about $152 million after taxes.\r
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With a majority of the top 10 Powerball jackpots being reached in the last five years, lottery officials acknowledge smaller jackpots dont create the buzz they once did.\r
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We certainly do see what we call jackpot fatigue, said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association. Ive been around a long time, and remember when a $10 million jackpot in Illinois brought long lines and people from surrounding states to play that game.\r
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Tom Romero, CEO of the New Mexico Lottery and chairman of the Powerball Group, agreed.\r
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Many years ago, $100 million was really exciting and people would immediately buy more, occasional players would start buying, he said. Then the threshold was $200 million. Now, we see here in New Mexico, were approaching the $300 million mark.\r
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The revamp of Powerball in January new changed the price of a ticket from $1 to $2, a move that upped the chances of the game reaching a major jackpot. There was a loss in the number of players, but the new game -- which also created more chances to win smaller, $1 million and $2 million prizes -- has brought in 52 percent more in sales, Strutt said. Sales were $5.9 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June.\r
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Still, the way casual players define a major jackpot has changed. Behavioral economist George Loewenstein, who teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, said people judge things in relative terms.
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