Retailer who sold ticket alleged winner was lottery-loving bus driver

By Kate Northrop

TRENTON, N.J. — The winner of the $221 million Powerball jackpot from the June 10, 2024 drawing has come forward anonymously to collect the prize, the New Jersey Lottery announced on Monday.

Following circulating rumors about the identity of the mystery ticketholder of the $221 million Powerball jackpot won on June 10, 2024, the New Jersey Lottery revealed that the winner has officially claimed the prize.

The prize claim is the second largest jackpot won in New Jersey this year, behind a behemoth $1.13 billion Mega Millions jackpot won on March 26, 2024 that is waiting to be claimed. That winner has one year from the draw date to come forward.

The winner of the $221 million Powerball jackpot bought their winning ticket at Preet Food Mart on Chews Landing Road in Lindenwold with a Quick Pick that contained the numbers 3, 10, 33, 58, and 59, with Powerball number 9.

"Most people win with a Quick Pick," Preet Food Mart clerk Harish Patel said at a New Jersey Lottery press conference.

At the in-person event where the Lottery presented the retailer with a commission check for $30,000, the cashier who says he sold the winning ticket to the winner labelled them a "regular customer" and alleged that they were a bus driver who spent about "$60 a day" on the lottery. Patel shared with reporters that he knew who the winner was, describing them as a "quiet and nice guy."

However, the anonymity laws in New Jersey that allow a lottery winner to withhold their name from the public make it likely that we will never be able to verify whether the retailer's claims about the identity of the ticketholder are true.

While the player did not give the Lottery permission to release their identifying information in a press release, they did say that they were prompted to check their ticket after hearing some misreported facts on the radio about the jackpot.

They were in for quite a shock.

The very first thing the winner did when they found out they were the lone winner of the $221 million jackpot was to call a close friend to share the news. Not even their friend could believe it.

So far, the winner has not made any plans for the prize money, the Lottery said.

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.

The next Powerball annuity jackpot estimate for the drawing on Wed., July 10 currently stands at $41 million.

Powerball is played in 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time.  Tickets cost $2 each.

Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega (www.usamega.com).  The USA Mega website provides lottery players in-depth information about the United States's two biggest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.