a billion dollar jackpot won in the lottery

A very (very) big prize. The Powerball, American equivalent of Lotto or Euromillions, made one or a happy, Wednesday, July 19, for an amount amounted to 1.08 billion dollars. According to CNN, the winning ticket was purchased in the Los Angeles area, in the state of California (southwest of the country). But the jackpot had not yet been claimed, Friday July 21.

“California has a new Powerball BILLIONAIRE”tweeted the state body managing the lottery in this southwestern state of the United States, where a winning ticket had already won more than 2 billion in November 2022. The lucky winner of this Wednesday will have to choose between receiving the entire 1.08 billion which was at stake via payments spread over three decades, or being paid in one go, up to 558.1 million dollars, according to an estimate by Powerball.

However, the winner will have to pay taxes on this tidy sum. And not least: the tax rate on these winnings is 37%, since the US tax authorities consider them ordinary income, according to the Washington Post, which adds that this is only the third time that the jackpot has exceeded $1 billion.