ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. — It's been two long weeks since the small city of Zephyrhills learned that a $590 million Powerball ticket was sold at a supermarket here.
No one expected the winner to come forward in the first days after the announcement. After all, curious residents reasoned, the person might need a few days to absorb the shock, or to consult with financial advisers.
But then a week passed, and more, and now folks are so anxious to know the winner's identity they could jump out of their skin.
"Being in a small town, everybody knows everybody and in some cases, everybody's business," said Dave Walters, a longtime reporter at the Zephyrhills News community newspaper. "It's hard to keep a secret in this town, but this is one of the biggest mysteries we've had in a long, long time."
Zephyrhills, population 13,337, is about 30 miles northeast of downtown Tampa. Like many Florida communities, it features a small, old-timey downtown strip where restaurants, gift shops and clothing stores sit under a canopy of oak trees. Around the city's perimeter, there's the suburban sprawl of big box stores. It was in that sprawl, at a Publix supermarket, where the winning ticket was sold.
Rumors were swirling about who the winner could be: Publix deli employees, single moms working at Wal-Mart — even the cousin of a friend of a guy who lived clear in another county.
"Anybody who did not show up for work on that Monday was considered to be the lottery winner," Walters said. "If you had the flu and didn't show up for work, everyone thought you were the lottery winner. If you took a personal day or a sick day, they thought you had won the lottery."
The city is known around the Tampa Bay area for a few things: as the source for bottled spring water, as an area where people like to skydive and as the home to several mobile home parks that cater to the elderly.
Joe Abed, who owns Manolo's Italian restaurant in the historic downtown, thinks the ticket was sold to a senior citizen.
"It's a conspiracy theory," he said, using his hands to make quote marks. "I believe it's a senior citizen that purchased the ticket and they just have no idea that they won the ticket."
Marsha Decena, a Zephyrhills clothing store owner, said she's anxious to find out who won.
"I've heard so many different rumors through town, from it being a 23- or 26-year-old woman to somebody might have washed it in their pocket, the ticket is just lost and they don't know that they won," she said. "It's crazy."
The winner has 60 days from the date of the May 18 drawing to claim a lump-sum payment, and until mid-November to claim annual cash payments.
Zephyrhills resident Don Lawrence thinks the winner is just lining up legal and accounting staff.
"Lost the ticket or something like that? No, I don't think so," he said. "I think somebody's taking their time, doing it the right way."
Newly elected Mayor Danny Burgess — who turned 27 on Saturday — said he hopes it's a resident.
"Just because one person won the lottery, we all feel like we won, that's the kind of community this is," Burgess said. "I absolutely hope for the lottery winner that this is a positive, life-changing event. Only in America can you go to bed with a lottery ticket and wake up a mega-millionaire. I hope that they understand, appreciate and recognize the significance of this."
Abed wonders if the ticket eventually is "just going to go back into the system" so the country can have "another huge lottery."
But that's wishful thinking. According to the Florida Lottery website, if a Powerball jackpot isn't claimed within 180 days from the draw date, "the funds to pay the unclaimed jackpot will be returned to the lottery members in their proportion of sales for the jackpot rollover series."
In other words, state coffers will claim the jackpot, and the people of Zephyrhills will be left to wonder.
here the issue
the winner is Now losing money by not claiming by now
it takes just about "2 full weeks" for all diff state's to wire the money to the winner state"florida lottery"
to have all money in 1 bank account ready to pay'wire" to the winner if they pick cash
that is money that could be earning interest
aka losing money , and 278,175,000 cash is atfer 25% withholding rate , sure they pay almust other 15% later on , but 278m intreast is no Joke money being lost some money here
all u people who say take your time, i say u have 2 weeks TIME, max, u can get ever thing done by 2 weeks easy
sense come 3rd week, your losing money by sure waitin and not even claiming yet
i can tell u right now, whatever legal help this winner has , should of warned the winner ,
MONEY now being lost by waiting to claim past this LATE point
maybe lottery winner just born turtle type,and we have it claimed by end of this 3rd week, only week lost of intreast ,oh will no big deal.
if atfer this week, the winner "if they know they won sense day atfer the draw" i call anyone a moron money wise who lose's money like this
or we have a clueless winner who does not even know they won, family issue's
who the hell knows
all i know is this winner taken to "long" as its costing them, thro to be fair, if u know u have 200+ million in cash, who cares about losing some more money..............
i don't have high hopes for smart winner if by end of this week, there sure no claim
2 weeks is more then time needed to even do a "legal court sealed name change" ,etc any and all dirty tricks to hide your name could be done by now................
i give it 1 more week, like i said, maybe the winner just little slow in head............................... by end of this next week, if no winner,
i can claim, we are not dealing with smartest person on plant who won,
as anyone who takes time to understand Powerball workings would know by 2 weeks time, the money Ready to be wired to a winner, the winner just has to show up with paperwork to claim, give lottery a bank account number and wait for how long banks can wire that amount over
the banks talk to each other more when wiring over this kinda large amount ,
i have not said anything about the winner for at lest 2 weeks,
now that they failed to show up in 2 week limit of getting stuff done without "losing money"
, i think we have to think the worst, moron/clueless/slow poke who costing them self's money, etc
thro if winner claims this week, and its done in such a way to loophole right by florida lottery public winner mandate, we may have our self's one of smartest ever winner's
doubt it thro, all legal loopholes should of been ready by now............
in short, give it other week, if on 7th we have no winner, the winner not smartest investment person on planet , as no one lose's money like this
then again, my thinkin comes form investment world, we just have layman lottery winner, who clueless is what scares me, ether way, good luck to winner in avoiding the media
Even if someone won a jackpot on my own block I don't think I'd be "jumping out of my skin" to find out who it was. That's their business. The only reason you'd be jumping out of your skin is if you couldn't wait to find out who's porch to show up on to start begging,lol.
It's the gummint that wants to know who won. Especially the IRS those @#$%!.
who was it? I don't care, it wasn't me. It is time to buy some tickets and hope I win a jackpot of my own.
$53k a week at 1%, not small change to likes of us, but in a years time ; once its all set up. the winner wont care.
good luck to winner in avoiding the media
Do people who wait a long time to cash the big one get more attention or less?
I wouldnt even try to avoid the press myself....but I'd be making darn sure I had all my ducks in a row before I'd be holding that press conference at headquarters...I'm like go on get all the press out of the way up front at the lottery headquarters then go live your new life...
Why do the states just keep the money if no one claims it?
The same reason that dogs lick their ba!!s.Because they can!
Your right, lottery players never complained before.... Why should they start now?
Lottery players DO complain,but it falls on deaf ears.When the Iowa lottery had the issue with the Hot Lotto ticket a couple of years ago they gave away the money at the state fair after people around the state complained agaisnt the state fair idea.The lottery in their wisdom or stupidity (take your choice) had their minds made up and no amount of pleading with them was going to change their mind.
Why was that a bad idea? At least they gave it back to the people of your great state.
in hiding?
I like the "elderly" theory BETTER.
When Ohio discontinued its Lot'O Play game and there wasn't a jackpot winner, they gave the money to players proportionally to the winning tickets of lower prizes they bought for the last game rather than giving it to the general public of which many didn't play lotteries.
I bought 20 tickets of which two were minimum winners which paid very well.
If the PB people really want to know who won the jp, they could go to where the ticket was sold and check the surveillance video and post a pic on tv.
I hope the winner(s) come forward before that happens.
Perhaps they are taking a "you snooze, you lose" stance?
If the winner doesn't come forward in the allowed time, there are probably hundreds of folks ready with a story to try and claim it since no one ever goes to jail for filing a false claim.
Considering they only have 60 days, the clock will run out VERY fast.
With all the computer technology out there I'm surprised there are not more false winning tickets.
Claim it already!
With a false claim you wouldn't want any hard evidence you couldn't deny and a false winning ticket would be that. Best to just claim you bought the ticket and lost or misplaced it.
To each his/her own. For all we know, the winner might already be a millionaire{like JACK} and could care less about the interest. One who is comfortable in their life, and does not care for the "GOD FORSAKEN" publicity, or maybe they have memory issues, and are totally oblivious of the fact that they WON REALLY BIG.
Good point.
Whoever comes forward will already be under suspicion because they waited so long.
I really hate that idea of using surveillance video. It's only been two weeks they have until November to claim the jackpot. It could take more than two weeks to plan for that much money.
Should only be used in cases involving disputes!!!
I say roll the footage. Lets see who won!
"Do people who wait a long time to cash the big one get more attention or less?"
both, this is record amount of cash for only "1 ticket" to have won
ofc the media going to be all over this winner when they go public
how long they wait does not matter, media WILL cover this winner
----------------------------------
60 days thing is not true folks .............. its 180 days to claim
the 60 day thing is some arcane IRS/Treasury department rule on the winners Have to pick the cash/or Annuity
it use to be u had to pick before u played, aka Annuity or cash, some kind of bs tax rule, they waved that silly rule , sorta
they put 60 day limit to the waiver of some arcane rule about that
now atfer 60 days, the lottery will pick annuity option for the winners to keep irs/Treasury department happy
and at that point, the winner can only take the annuity option ,
blame the IRS/treasury silly upside down world for that rule. not the lottery , they tried to get better waiver, failed at it
the winners sure have total of 180 sense winning draw to claim, is point
so early November to claim , tons of time really
just losing media
also back to media
in lawyer world i sure think winners could claim it hidden, does not matter about public record laws
just to list the options
legal name change with court sealed judge granting it "life in danger tall tale type of story" no link to old u via paper
#2, legal entity such as a trust/corporations
the lottery can sure know who "won" behind it, as rules state they must
just have to be fake middle man like these clowns
https://www.lotterypost.com/news/239509
that's story about the 3 very bad middle man trying to pretend to public they are in fact "real winners"
the story goes these 3 man, all tipped in like 33 cents? to buy 1 ticket
it was only 1 ticket line that won
that's right, 3 man pooled money to buy only 1 ticket! that won,
also they manage other people's money for living
no funny business going on here, no sir
the funny part, the trust they claimed it with, had a 4th trust beneficiary ,a other TRUST!
so u had 3 clowns be public face as the "winners"
the lottery got the first trust papers, they put the "human" winners up for show
however Who ever was in 2nd trust as the "4th" that beneficiary would get all money atfer some time passed
is what Trust papers stated, in short, all money goes to 2nd trust, the "4th" beneficiary was never found out
, the media did freedom act, got to see first trust papers, sense lottery had a copy of it
lottery demanda copy of trust who claims it, so they will know who the "winners are"
only first trust thro, if a beneficiary is a other trust, the lottery DOES not have that 2nd trust info
they have no right to it, PERIOD
so no freedom act/public record laws can show who "the real" winner is
so to repeat.
the "real" winners to media are in fact the "fake" winners MWHAHAHAHA
ofc lottery had no right to the "beneficiary" 2nd trust papers , aka the trust within a trust papers
the lottery had no way to know who "real" winners are
they only had 3 banker clowns words to take, hance why lottey pro claimed them as the real winners
trust u me, public records can be loophole driven thro easy
laywers when told to make loopholes will make loopholes
public record laws are joke.
it has been done before,and it will happen again"when is other story"
i doubt must winners will ever have brains and balls to abuse legal loopholes
but to say it can't be done in "forced" to go public lottery state is false idea
it can be done, i seen it happen
Because it was a foregone conclusion that it would go to someone from Des Moines,not from one of the hundreds of towns and cities that make up the state of Iowa.The Iowa Lottery is under the impressiion that all Iowans either live in Des Moines or want to live in Des Moines.I once was a finalist in a lottery promotion where the winner got a flat screen tv.They couldn't understand why I didn't want to drive 200 miles in the dead of winter to attend an Iowa Hawkeyes basketball game in Des Moines on a 1 in 10 chance that I might be the winner of the tv.The other nine contestants got a Hawkeyes t-shirt.They were,however,nice enough to send me the t-shirt in the mail.Oh,and the jackpot on that Hot Lotto ticket was 14 million $ and they only gave away 1 Million $ at the state fair,they never did say what happened to the other 13 million $.
Ok, so they have 60 days to get they money. After that they are forced to take the annuity. It sounds like it is in the state best interest to wait til AFTER the 60 days expire to make an effort to find the winner.
Whoever this person is, if they dont claim it this week then they either lost the ticket, dont know they won, or not very smart because then they waited a month+ to receive the money because it takes at least two weeks for it be reach a bank account. I still remember the Georgia Jackpot where there was ~70M unclaimed and with such a huge Jackpot who knows where the ticket may be..the Lottery HQ hasnt even received an "anonymous" phone call so this person is in trouble IMO.
I would hate to see the government receive this all back and distribute back to the states when its the people's money. I think that rule is one of the worst scams i've ever seen.
I hope the winner of this Powerball jackpot steps forward.
There's lots of reasons to cause delay. I would'nt be surprised if a snowbird has the ticket.
I'm hoping that when the winner claims their money and decide to donate some to their local whatever, they will NOT be promised to be broke within five years!! The promise always comes with several exclamation marks. Benevolence is not appreciated in 2013
If the winner is keeping quiet and seeking financial advice =good. After 2 weeks, I would have a really hard time not telling anyone , "It was ME !"
I am the winner i will cliam it soon.
This >>> "I believe it's a senior citizen that purchased the ticket and they just have no idea that they won the ticket."
Ultimately, only moochers, the media, and the IRS really care at this point. The rest are just nosey-posey's. Going from a "9 to 5" to being a millionare 500 times over is a life altering event. Floridians need to just settle down. let the lucky person(s) get their ducks in a row. They're probably doing some soul searching, identifying who their REAL friends are (if they didn't already know), If I was the lucky winner, I'd be more concerned with how my life is about to change more than I would a couple of weeks interest...
Thanks for informing us ........I thought it took like 3 weeks to have everything settled ...
Thinking maybe it's the lawyers who's taking there sweet time , there could be many reasons
why it's taking longer ........If I won this powerball , I would already turn that ticket in .
Curious why he/she taking there time ........