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$2.04 billion — Powerball, November 2022
The biggest ever, won on a ticket sold at a petrol station in Altadena, California.
$2.04bnAdvertised annuity. The cash option was $997.6 million.
The draw was delayed by nearly ten hours because one state had not finished processing its sales — a mundane administrative hold that left the entire country refreshing the same page overnight. When the numbers finally came, one ticket had all six.
It belonged to Edwin Castro, who took the cash and spent a chunk of it on California property, including a house in the Hollywood Hills. He also, by his own account, had been buying the same kind of ticket for years without much drama.
Then came the part that is now almost traditional for a record jackpot: another man sued, claiming the ticket had been stolen from him. Lottery officials backed Castro, and the case went nowhere, but it took months and a lot of lawyers to say so.