A Californian woman thought that she had won Saturday’s $360 million Powerball jackpot over the weekend, only to realise that she purchased her ticket an hour too late.
Margit Arrobio bought five tickets from her local Shell gas station in Pasadena on Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning she then noticed that the Powerball draw matched all six numbers on her card, but didn’t understand why the news was reporting that no one had bought the winning ticket.
Arrobio told ABC7, “I called my gas station where I bought the ticket and I said, ‘I don’t get it. I have every number and yet they say there’s no winner.”
The attendant on the other end of the phone then informed Arrobio that he had purchased the ticket an hour after Wednesday’s draw had been announced, meaning that her numbers were only eligible for the next draw.
Arrobio stated that she was at first shocked and then disappointed by the news, which could be regarded as an understatement.
The Powerball was eventually won by a person who purchased it in Zephyrhills, Florida Publix , but this individual has yet to emerge.
Whoever did get the ticket has won $590.5million, but this will only come to the paltry sum of $370million after taxes take their toll.
A spokeswoman for Publix, the supermarket, stated, “We’re excited for the winner or winners … We don’t promote or endorse the lottery. We offer it as a convenience.”
If the winner is based in Florida there are no state taxes on lottery winnings, which means that the player will inherit more than money than residents of other states in the country.
Cindy O’Connell, the Florida Lottery executive, added on Sunday that they winner still hadn’t come forward, remarking, “This would be the sixth Florida Powerball winner and right now, it’s the sole winner of the largest ever Powerball jackpot … We’re delighted right now that we have the sole winner.”
She then added, “There is just the chance that you will have the opportunity and Florida is a huge Powerball state. We have had more winners than any other state that participates in Powerball.”
How do you feel for Margit Arrobio?