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| A man stands outside the Stop & Shop in South Brunswick, N.J., Thursday, Aug. 8, 2013, where one of the three winning Powerball tickets was sold. The jackpot is $448 million, the third largest ever. |
ROSEVILLE, Minn.
(AP) -- A 45-year-old suburban Minneapolis man wasted little time
Thursday in claiming one-third of a $448 million Powerball jackpot,
coming forward only hours after realizing he had won to reveal his good
fortune to the world.
Paul White, a project
engineer from Ham Lake, said at a news conference at Minnesota State
Lottery headquarters that his "significant other" called him Thursday
morning to say one of three winning tickets for Wednesday night's
drawing had been sold in Minnesota. The other two were sold in New
Jersey, but those who bought them hadn't come forward yet.
White
said he checked the 10 tickets he had bought and realized he had nailed
all six numbers on one of them. The divorced father of two teenagers
said the ensuing hours had been a blur.
"It's just surreal at this point. I don't think you guys can understand - it's crazy. No worries anymore. It's crazy," he said.
Family
members appeared alongside White at the joyful news conference. White,
who said he is a native of Rhinelander, Wis., said he had a tough time
convincing many of family members that he had a winning ticket.
"The only person who didn't feel I was BSing them was my mother. Whose name is Betty White, by the way," he said.
White
said he worked for a Minneapolis electrical contractor that had worked
on major projects around the area including the Twins' Target Field and
the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium. He said he's help his
company finish a few things up, but that after that his working days
would be over.
"I think a lot of good things
are going to come out of this for not only my family and friends but for
random people," he said. "I don't want to work for anybody else for the
rest of my life for a paycheck.
The other two
winning tickets were sold in New Jersey, including at a store in Little
Egg Harbor, which is still recovering from the damage wrought by
Superstorm Sandy, which made landfall just a few miles away.
"Hopefully,
it's somebody who lives in the area, and this is their reward for
having gone through this," said Carol Blackford, a retiree whose home in
Little Egg Harbor was flooded with knee-high water during last
October's storm. "And if they want to share, we're here."
But even if the winner wasn't someone devastated by the storm, the community will benefit from the jackpot.
Phil
Weber, director of the Acme Markets store where the winning ticket was
sold, said Thursday that the store would donate $10,000 in gift cards to
local charities. Weber said some of the store's employees are still out
of their homes more than nine months after the storm. The store itself
has been making donations since Sandy, Weber said.
The other tickets were sold in a Super Stop & Shop store in South Brunswick, N.J.
The winning numbers drawn Wednesday night were: 05, 25, 30, 58, 59 and Powerball 32.
Each
winning ticket was worth $86 million before taxes, or $58.3 million
after taxes, if taken in a lump sum.
They are worth $149.4 million over
30 years if the winners choose the annuity option.
Several
people were anxiously checking their tickets Thursday morning for
would-be winners at the Little Egg Harbor store where one of the three
tickets that matched all six numbers was sold.
A
recent game change intended to build excitement about the lottery has
increased the frequency of huge jackpots. Wednesday's 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, $587.5 million, was won in November and split
between two tickets from Arizona and Missouri.
The
Minnesota ticket fell well short of the state's record for a Powerball
jackpot, a $123.6 million cash option prize in 2011 for a suburban
Burnsville couple.
