Playing Powerball is one of life’s great pleasures, because it mixes the anticipation and excitement of a traditional lottery with the accumulative thrill of seeing that jackpot grow week after week, and, what is usually seen as just an American lottery is now available to play in Canada, meaning that not only can Canadians vie for a shot at the big prize, but their inclusion actually bumps the jackpot up. And when you win the jackpot, you’re set for life with either a sizeable lump sum of money (and a nifty large novelty cheque to go with it!) or an annual sum of money paid out over 20 to 30 years, meaning that you get a sizeable salary without lifting a finger.
A lot of people can’t believe their eyes when they see how much the Powerball jackpot is, and, indeed, one of the most frequently asked questions about the Powerball is “What is the maximum jackpot”, to which the answer is, of course: none. The jackpot keeps going up and up until somebody wins it. The sky’s the limit, and you’d better believe the Powerball has seen some sky-high winners – the highest jackpot so far has been for $1.58 billion (with a “b”!) the biggest ever in lottery history, though it was split between three winners. In this post, we’ll look at some of the most recent sky-high winners, how much they won, and what they’ve done with their newly acquired dough – these are all people like the rest of us, who were bold enough to keep trying and lucky enough for their efforts to pay off.
2017’s big winners so far have each received their jackpots in different ways. Mavis Wanczyk of Chicopee Massachusetts had her life upturned (for the better, of course) when she realized she was looking down at all the correct numbers – a mixture of her family’s birthdays and her lucky number “4”. She immediately informed her bosses at the hospital she worked at that she wouldn’t be working there any longer, and took her $758 million dollar Powerball jackpot – the largest ever jackpot in American lottery history – in a lump sum!
Mai Xiong, an elementary school teacher in Milwaukee (previously named “Teacher of the Year”) also took the lump sum of her $156 million dollar prize this past March, though she’s remained a little more low-key with her plans for the money. Jeff Lindsay of California said, in an interview after he won a $447 million jackpot, that “We are obviously thrilled with this tremendous stroke of good luck”, but declined to speak further to the media, because he says that he and his family are “private people”, something no one can fault Jeff for – after all, it must be quite the shock winning nearly half a billion dollars overnight! The other 2017 winners chose to remain anonymous but have all chosen to take the lump sum of cash for their winning ticket.
Yes, Powerball has some of the highest jackpots in the world, and continually makes multi-millionaires out of its players. Now that it’s in Canada, it’s only a matter of time before a Canadian wins the big jackpot, and with online sites now offering information about Powerball, it’s closer than ever to happening.
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